Rob Huntley: The Land Down Under from a Kite High Above.
During a recent four-week trip along the southeastern coasts of Australia, Rob Huntley, a Canadian-based kite aerial photographer, sensed that he “might be allergic to lightning.”
Byron Bay, near the easternmost point of Australia, offered up some “iffy” weather, Huntley said, and forced him to take precautions; namely, keeping his kite (and the remote-controlled camera suspended from it) at a lower altitude than normal and not dallying in the sky for too long. “[T]here were some pretty dark clouds,” Huntley said, “and you’re only allowed one chance of getting it wrong.” Luckily for us, he didn’t get it wrong but rather was able to capture brilliantly atmospheric images of Cape Byron and the Byron Lighthouse with the looming clouds in the background. Farther up the coast in Hervey Bay, Huntley’s kite soared over smooth, golden shores and lush, verdant coastlines.
A jaunt to Brisbane offered up better weather and “good cityscapes of the Brisbane skyline, plus an opportunity to look for graphic designs and abstracts in the garden bed arrangements.” Down in Melbourne, Huntley snapped bright blue skies, rich green grasses and the black, winding tarmac of the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park. And farther down the southern coastline, he experienced his favorite part of the trip: shooting the beaches of Cape Woolamai. The location offered brilliant natural lighting over high tides of wide, sandy beaches interspersed with rocky inlets and shallow cliffs covered in green shrubs. Huntley said, “I was really happy with the landscapes and the straight down aerial abstracts I was fortunate to obtain in the camera.”