I’ve been working in Langley, BC, lately, and will be here until things start up again for winter in Revy. It’s taken some adjusting to get used to the suburban lifestyle, surrounded by stripmalls, shopping malls and neighbourhoods that all look similar. But yesterday I took a short drive down to the water to White Rock on my day off. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. When I got there, it was really windy all along the beach, and there were kite boarders riding in the Semiahmoo Bay. I’ve shot a bit of kite boarding in Grand Bend, but not a lot. So I got out my camera and started shooting this one rider in particular, who was getting some huge air. I waited for him to come in, but he was out there for hours, and I had been shooting for over an hour in the pouring rain. Not only were my clothes soak, but my camera was starting to get wet. Satisfied with what I had, I went to dry off in my car.
The difficult thing about shooting kiteboarding is that 1, the riders are often far away, 2, you need to decide if you want a tight shot of the rider, with no kite, or a loose shot of the rider and the kite, and 3, to position yourself in the right way that when they get air, you can see how high they really are, and to be somewhere with something in the background to give perspective. I shot these from the beach, with a 300mm lens.
White Rock, BC - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 - Kite boarders get some air in Semiahmoo Bay in White Rock, near the US border. (Matthew Timmins)
