Parc des Portageurs

The objective of this KAP outing (Kite Aerial Photography) was to photograph the Chaudière Falls from the Québec side of the Ottawa River. The Chaudière Falls are in the middle of the river, and distanced from public access by the river itself as well as private industry, primarily E.B. Eddy. Besides the out-of-the-ordinary overhead perspective that Kite Aerial Photography provides, it is also an excellent means to get closer to distant subjects. This was also an opportunity to get a unique perspective on the city core. The kite and rig were launched from Parc des Portageurs in Gatineau (what is formerly Hull) which is at the corner or rue Montcalm and rue Laurier across from the office complex Les Terrasses de la Chaudière.

It is tricky getting the correct exposure in this type of winter situation (mix of very light and very dark areas depending on the orientation of the camera), particularly when you have to fix the camera settings before the camera leaves the ground. I exposed for snow in this session with an EV of +2/3. This gave good exposure when the white predominated in the picture. Some of these images are slightly overexposed in the white areas since the scene was already balanced between light and dark areas and the exposure compensation wasn’t required. Other shots which had predominantly dark areas (especially where there were large areas of exposed water) should have had -ve compensation and therefore the whites were grossly overexposed and I have not included any of these images. There are ways around this such as sending the camera up twice with different exposure settings, reshooting all the angles as best as possible. The other alternative would be to bracket the shots of each session and this is recently possible with cameras such as the Canon powershot A570IS with the application of CHDK technology and scripts for bracketing. The camera never stays still as it would on a tripod, so even when bracketing, the composition would likely be quite different within each bracketed series. This is one of the challenges of KAPing. Thank heavens for digital cameras.

There are powerlines shown in several pictures which, for safety reasons, I stayed well away from with the kite and rig. They were further away then my 500′ line anyway. When the wind is right, I’ll probably do the falls from the opposite side (Ontario side of the river) which may be a bit closer to the falls and there would be no powerlines to be concerned with.

Chaudière Falls:

Chaudière Falls from Parc des Portageurs

Ottawa and the Ottawa River. E.B. Eddy Bridge in the foreground, Portage Bridge further away, downtown core and the Parliament Buildings in the background:

Ottawa skyline.

The edge of the earth? Standing at the abyss with my KAP line. This is Parc des Portageurs in Hull and the water is very clear but looks very black at this time of year. I’ll have to come back in the summer to see if there’s an explanation of the boat hull and dog sculptures:

Parc des Portageurs

Ottawa and Hull (Gatineau) and the Ottawa River. Hull, Quebec on the left, Ottawa, Ontario on the right, downtown core and the Parliament Buildings in the background:

Ottawa and Hull.

These power lines look closer than they are. I was very conscious of the safety concerns of flying kites near power lines. If I had been flying the kite at right angles to the lines (which I wasn’t) you might conclude that the kite must be almost over them for the camera to be where it is. However, this pylon is well out in the river (surrounded by ice not land) and this is a shot looking almost backwards from the direction of the kite line. The top picture of the falls shows the next pylon standing at the edge of the falls. You can see there that I’m not even close with the equipment and the kite line was leftwards of that pylon too.

Powerlines on the Ottawa River near Chaudière Falls.