The Digital Negative: September 2005

A couple weeks ago the Bay Area hosted the 5th annual King of the Bay Kiteboarding and Windsurfing contest. KOTB V was run a bit different this year with new events like Kiter-Cross and they replaced the pro Kiteboarding contest with a 30 minute no-holds-bar expression session.

The expression session turned out to be the best contest event I have ever seen. Some of the best riders in the world throwing down the sickest tricks they knew for 30 minutes straight. Even better was the fact that the session started around 6:30 in the evening when the lighting was perfect and we were blessed with some good clean wind. I managed to grab a huge amount of incredible kiting images, many of which will grace the pages of several of the kiting magazines.

The days immediately following the contest, Gabe Brown, editor of Kiteboarding Magazine, managed to get a number of the pro riders together for a series of photo shoots around the Bay Area. I was lucky enough to get invited as the photographer and ended up with some seriously good images for the next few issues of the magazine and my portfolio.

To see a number of select images from the KOTB express session, head on over to THE GALLERY.

Ruben Lenten