Wednesday started with the registration, followed by a reception at Brooks' house. I met a number of people from last year, but also some new faces. A good number af the attendees are newbies and eager to see and learn.

Thursday we had a Rig-building workshop for part of the participants. The rest drove south to Big Sur and Bixby bridge (the photo of which, by Cris Benton, won the first price at the Aerial Photo Contest in Japan), for the Germans and north to Pigeon Point Lighthouse. At the Lighthouse, we had good wind (all of us used Flowform 16s), but the fog kept coming in. From there, on the way back south, we stopped at a pumpkin farm. There, conditions were very good and all of us took lots of pictures.

The evening brought us a short presentation from Eric Muhs about his trip to the South Pole and how he did some KAP there. This was followed by a discussion about the artistic aspects of KAP under the title "So it flies ... Now what?".

See the picture slideshow.

Today, we started with presentations about new KAP techniques, showing technical aspects like building a 2.4GHz antenna for video transmission (by Ralf Beutnagel). This was followed by Scott Haefners demonstration of how he creates his stunning 360 degree bubble pictures.

After this rather dry, but well presented, theoretical session, we split up into several groups to do some real life KAPing. Not all were equally successfull, as the weather, i.e. the wind, wouldn't allways play by the rules. As shown on todays pictures, some were headed for Moss Landing, where they could get their gear aloft. Others, including the author, drove to Salinas Valley to look for interesting subjects. We found enough good places, but alas, no wind. So we had our boxed lunch and then headed back to Pacific Grove. Our plan to take some aerials of the Asilomar Conference ground was quickly abandoned because of dense fog. We found Ralf Beutnagel standing beside Sunset Drive with his kite line disappearing only 2m above him in the fog ... I don't know yet if he got some shots from the to of the fog. So we headed to Lovers Point where I, and later also Ralf got our kites aloft and some pictures taken.

After dinner, we had a very interesting open discussion about kite flying and safety, followed by a short presentation of Marv Naumans techniques and experiences with Kite Aerial Video.

Bubble pano by Peter Bults. Based on a fisheye KAPiCA/03 picture by Wolfgang Bieck and a Dutch sky by Peter.
(Use your leftclicked mouse to move the picture or see the QuickTime version.)

By Brooks Leffler

The Tech Morning went well -- Ralf was much more relaxed than last year in his presentation, and Scott added some very good stuff about using PShop to improve on digital images to his presentation about bubble panos.

I really left them loose about the field trips today -- no guidance to speak of, but they all sorted it out and Kevin took a busful of newbies to Moss Landing, and three cars with Cris in the lead went off south down Salinas Valley. The Valley group found a good place to eat lunch by the side of the road, and decided the wind had to be better at Moss Landing. Fog in and out all day, but generally better than yesterday. the Deutschers stayed here, shooting pix at Asilomar beach and Lovers Point.

Despite virtually no preparation by myself to lead the topic, we had a much-better-than-expected discussion about safety and risk tonight-- they didn't want to quit talking and I had to cut them off about 9:15 so Marv could do his camcorder piece. He did very well too, and I hadda kick em out at 10, as I did last night.

See the picture slideshow.

After breakfast, we did our group shots. I say shots with a 's' because there were at least 100 of them taken by various people, but the most interesting will be the panorama by Brooks and the bubble panorama by Wolfgang Bieck. Richard Greene had the fantastic idea of holding the rigs behind a big Dopero so that their shadows could be seen on the other side. Karen Gustavsons pictures show you what the result was. I find it gorgeous!



Then, we left for our various KAP excursions. Henry Jebe and myself went to try our luck southward on Highway 1. We had Bixby Bridge in mind, but were open to anything that might capture our interest. Finally, we just flew at the bridge, me that is, because Henry had trouble getting his kite up. I got some pictures, but only two that showed the bridge ... partially! During this, I had a little fight with a powerline which turned out very luckily but could have caused at least the loss of rig and kite.

So we headed back to Asilomar where I managed to do some aerials of the conference grounds.

The other groups were also successfull at their excursions to Santa Cruz, Fort Ord and Moss Landing.

At Dinner, we celebrated Matt Coles daughter Genevas tenth birthday. The cake was delicious!

During dinner, Brooks also announced the winners of this years awards. They are:

- David Hunt for his fantastic 8 DVD documentary of KAPiCA/02 - Wolfgang Bieck for his activities to push and popularize KAP - Eric Muhs for bringing KAP to the most remote part of the world, the South Pole

Back at the conference room, Brooks managed an iteresting and funny auction, followed by Don and Elaine Dvoraks presentation of their KAP ventures on Easter Island.

Oh, I nearly forgot: Brooks had 20 copies of the 8 DVD (!) documentational videos from last years KAPiCA/02. They sold for 50 dollars and from the small extracts I managed to view, they are worth every cent of it. No wonder that quickly 16 or 17 of the 20 sets were sold.

Tomorrow will sadly be the day of goodbyes. Already, I miss everybody and I wouldn't mind if this meeting could be prolonged by a week ... but I think Brooks would be too exhausted by that.

See the picture slideshow.
See a full frame Bieck/Bults bubble (700 kB).

Goodbye-Day ... sadly.

After breakfast, Wolfgang Bieck gave us a very appetizing slide show of Sumatra where the next KAP meeting, KAPiSU/04 will be held. A truly wonderful country.

Cris Benton presented the candidates for the best KAP picture taken at the conference. The contest was fierce, as all the pictures of the final selection were outstanding. It was a picture of a tree by Ralf Beutnagel that made it to the first place.

Then, Brooks gave out three more awards: The one for the lightest rig went to Kevin Flynn; the one for the heaviest rig to Henry Jebe (with his home built panoramic camera) and the last one went to Shusuke Minato for coming the farthest way to KAPiCA/03.

We're heading for lunch now. Already, some people left early this morning. We all enjoyed this conference very much, but alas, all good things have an end. This event, like last years, will live on in our hearts for a long time. Thanks to all who attended and/or helped!

This ends my report from KAPiCA/03.



P.S.: These wonderful feathers were offered to each participant by Jerry Fincher. Thanks Jerry!

See the picture slideshow of the last morning.
See pictures by Doug Davlin.
See the Point Pinos Lighthouse pictures by Carlo Didier (this lighthouse inspired Brooks' KAPiCA logo).
See the "Best KAPiCA/03 Picture" finalists (fullsize files).
See the winner of the "2003 KAPPY Award for Best Picture" (fullsize screen, 366 kB).

See some pictures by David Tuttle.
See the pictures by Glenn Nelson.
Pictures by Eric Muhs of Moss Landing and San Juan Bautista
Webalum by Chris Cooke
Ralf Beutnagel's report
Carlo Didier's pictures

Where ...... oh where ..... to begin?

It was a dark and stormy night ........... well, no....... it was a very nice October afternoon.

Two vans full of KAPers ........ one driven by Kevin Flynn, the other by Doug Davlin ...... left Asilomar and headed north to Fort Ord. My van was following Kevin and his troop. As we headed north, Kevin suddenly took an off ramp that was, according to Elvie, way too early to get to the site we wanted to go to. Soon he parked and let us (Elvie) lead the way. Elvie and her husband live out there and she knew where to go. Within minutes were at the center of the school in Fort Ord and a big fair was going on. Lots of kids, lots of flags, and lots of closed roads. At this point, Kevin and his crew decided to head to Moss Landing.

We used Elvie's pass, and headed on out to the remote "closed city". It was eery going up and down deserted streets ...... buildings all boarded up ..... no people ...... no sound. We did spot an old church, and everyone thought it would be a good place to start KAPing. We also had plans to go to a lake and somethings else ..... but that did not happen.

Disaster #1: Elvie
Elvie got her kite up and let it way out. The wind was there ..... but light! I helped her attach her rig and after it was up about twenty feet, we heard a loud grinding sound. We brought the rig down and found the gears in the "tilt" servo were stripped. She could only shoot straight down. Well ...... at least she could shoot!

Disaster #2: Glenn
Glenn got his Dopero launched ....... hooked up his rig ..... and found that he had left his transmitter back at Asilomar. After determining that none of our transmitters worked with his rig, he then worked with Elvie for awhile.

Disaster #3: Art
Art worked hard to get his kite launched and after it was up with rig attached, he only had about 30 feet of line to let out. Thus he was relegated to very low altitude KAP shots.
However, he worked hard with what he had ...... walked around trees, cars, building ..... and was able to attempt about 50 shots of the steeple, roof, etc.
Upon bringing rig down, he found that the camera trip servo was not correctly aligned with the shutter release ...... and had NO images!
He also was going to attach his "fish eye" lens, but it was nowhere to be found!

Disaster #4: Glenn & Elvie
After bringing their rigs and kites, it was time for lunch. They sat on the rear bumper of the van ...... well they also sat a little back into the van ..... causing the rubber gasket ( the one that seals the rear door) to roll off its mount. This exposed the glue .... or whatever Dodge uses) to get onto the back of the pants of Elvie and Glenn. Wherever they sat, they left a trail of glue. I took a picture of them, but with someone else's camera. Maybe Elvie knows. We used Asilomar empty box lunch boxes for them to sit on in the car.

Disaster #5: Art
Meanwhile, Art decided to eat the lunch he had brought from home ...... part of which was a thermos (or some screw top container) of yogurt. After sitting in the sun for a few hours ....... upon opening ..... it exploded ....... all over Art's pants and part of the van! Yogurt everywhere! What a mess!!!

At this point, few felt like KAPing any more. We headed to Elvie's house ..... about a mile away ..... for her to change clothes and give out paper towels to everyone else! Next, it was back to Asilomar! Time to regroup! Everyone went their own way and the trip from Hell was over!

Later that evening, we learned that Art had fixed his camera/servo problem ....... that Glenn had his transmitter ..... and Elvie would get a tilt servo with steel gears.

Perhaps the words "Excursion form Hell" and "disaster" are too strong. We all lived through it, we all laughed about it, and we still had a good conference!