Shane Anderson from Kitesurf Nelson getting some major air at Lyall Bay in Wellington, New Zealand
A few months ago I was in the market for a new housing for my canon 7d. I did my research & settled on a CMT water housing from the US. They were fantastic, & kept me informed all the way through the building process of my housing. Finally it was finished & shipped arriving on my door step just in time for the weekend. The housing exceeded my expectations & my 7d fitted into the carbon fiber body like a glove. I was very keen to take it out & get some shots with it that weekend.
Unfortunately the surf wasn’t playing nicely & the forecast was for pretty much no waves & a strong cold southerly wind. All was not lost though, because a strong cold southerly in Wellington, New Zealand means that the kiteboarders will be out in force. I headed down to the beach & there were already a dozen or so kiteboarders out playing amongst the pretty much non-existent surf. I loaded the camera into the housing, doing all the pre-seal housing checks, suited up in my wetsuit & booties & was out there. I went with the canon 50mm/f1.4 lens instead of the canon 15mm fisheye, & the 50mm fits snugly into the same dome port as the fisheye does. I choose this lens because in the kind of conditions that there were that day, you usually don’t get close enough to the kiteboarders to warrant the use of a fisheye. Sure I would have gotten a few photos where they would have been close enough, but not as many as I did get with the 50mm.
The day was overcast & grey so there wasn’t much colour around. I walked out to chest deep water & started shooting as the kiteboarders buzzed around me. I was pleasantly surprised as to how light the housing was how comfortable it felt when holding it by the pistol grip. I missed a few good shots while I was sorting out my camera settings, but once I had them I pretty much just shot away for an hour or so. I exposed for the kiters & let the sky blow out a bit. As it was fairly overcast, the sun was filtering through the clouds & was just like a big soft box in the sky.
When it came to processing the images, I played with a few colour options, but decided to do the whole set of images in black & white, as the softer lighting & lack of colour suited them more so than if they were in colour. I was happy with the final result, & the kiteboarders were pretty happy too – some of those pics would look fantastic as a large print…
Check out the slideshow below of the 32 images, & if you want to see a larger version of them, then either click on the image itself, or click here for the whole gallery.
Kiteboarding | Wellington | 01 May 10 – Images by Mark Gee
WorldPix enables me to help others in need by giving me a platform to sell a selection of my prints, and then donate the proceeds to charities and causes of my choice. The two I have personally chosen in New Zealand is the Women's Refuge New Zealand, and the children's charity, Variety New Zealand. I'll also be supporting causes in Kenya and Tanzania in Africa, which are countries I've personally traveled to and photographed.
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Hi, I really like the black & white kiteboarding print above no 2/32. Is there any way I could buy a print off you?
Sure, just email me directly under the contact link from my website telling me what size print you want & where you need it delivered to. Cheers!