Friday, August 22, 2008

Thematic Photographic 12: Colorful v.1.0


"Flying Fish"
Atlantic Beach, NC - July 2008 (Click to embiggen)

Thematic Photographic hosted by Carmi - Button Image by Smarmoofus Hosted by Written Inc.

Yes I'm late to the party this week, but the archives weren't yielding up the right shot and as soon as Carmi announced the prompt for the week the weather here turned decidedly uncolorful, precluding the capturing of any new material. So I cheated a little. You've seen the kite before but it's a different shot. (I swear!) I'd say a different angle, but is there any angle other than "up" when you're talking about this kind of subject?

Kites have always been popular at the beach, but like everything else American, a whole culture has grown up arond them. No longer is kite flying the exclusive province of young children with an afternoon and a stiff breeze on their hands. Now there are shops specializing in high-tech models costing up to several hundred USD. This particular one was on the more modest end of the scale (around $35 I believe) and is a basic single-line recreational model. The bigger, multi-line models can actually be "driven" more like a remote control glider than anything else. This is what happens when adults play children's games I suppose.


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3 comments:

awareness said...

Beautiful.......love kites and kite flying on a summer day. No techie newfangled gadgets for me though....will go with the tried and true kite with a colourful tail. I have a friend whose father teaches children how to make kites. He learned the craft from his father growing up in Taiwan. His own kites are a piece of art.

great take on Carmi's prompt this week.

Mojo said...

The ones I saw in the store we went to were amazing engineering marvels. Impressive, to be certain, but there's something inherently wrong with taking something as simple and pure as a kite and bringing it into the space age like this. I suppose they're just as much fun for the people who fly them, but there's an innocence lost when they go to carbon fiber frames covered in ripstop nylon. Or maybe... maybe it's just that I wasn't around during the evolutionary phase so the current generation was jarring to me.

smarmoofus said...

Short and sweet: Thank you. I am me. I have a lot to come to grips with. That's all. Maybe in a few days.