In Saltscapes,
Cris Benton, retired professor of architecture at UC Berkeley, has focused
his camera upon the southern end of San Francisco's historic South Bay—the site
of salt evaporation ponds that are being restored to tidal wetlands and marshes
after a century of industrial salt production. For ten years, Benton researched and was intrigued by the
history of these landscapes right in his own backyard. He hiked the salt-pond
levees and took photographs of the region. Sky reflections from the earthbound
perspective, however, did not do justice to his attempts to capture the
confluence of snowy-looking white salt, marsh grass and mudflats. Therefore, Benton began to
experiment and decided to attach his camera to a kite.
The book details, in fascinating
depth, how he developed his gear and the various prototypes that led him to
successfully master Kite Aerial
Photography (KAP). Mounting his camera to a radio-controlled kite, Benton
has photographed the region from heights up to three hundred feet. This unique,
bird's eye vantage point produces distinctive images that peer straight down
into the water and the land to reveal unexpected, breathtaking color
saturations, textures, shapes, details and form that go beyond what the eye can
discern from the ground.
In the foreword of the
book, image comparisons are made to the abstract expressionist paintings of Mark Rothko and Benton,
himself, pays homage to the artist. This collection of stark, striking
photographs visually engage spatial sensibilities and illustrate exciting,
fresh perspectives of a largely unexplored American territory in restorative
transformation.
Heyday, $50.00,
Hardcover, 9781597142472 , 176 pp
Publication
Date: December 1, 2013
To order
this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE
Note: This review is a reprint and is being
posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf
Awareness. To read this review on Shelf
Awareness: Reader's Edition (12/17/13),
click HERE