Benicia author and storyteller John Beck was taking videos of vineyards and outdoor venues when he decided to change his perspective.
literally.
When capturing drone video footage, the camera is always pointed towards the horizon with the aim of capturing the vastness of the selected land. “I began to look straight at the earth and see patterns and scenes of vineyards meeting dense development, schools and parks, warehouses and hospitals,” he said.
“Flight Patterns” will feature drone photography from Solano, Sonoma, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties and will be on view from Oct. 30 to Dec. 5 in the Art Gallery of the Benicia Public Library.
Beck is a reporter for The Press Democrat, a writer for Sonoma Magazine, and a documentarian. Above all, he considers himself a storyteller, communicating through the medium he deems best suited to the story.
In the case of “Flight Patterns,” that medium is still photography.
Beck noticed not only the vastness of the area, but also the hard boundaries, sharp cut-offs, and trailing streams that cut through residential developments.
“Once you get past that, you start to see patterns that people just don’t notice when they’re going about their daily lives,” Beck says.
“We started to see those strange juxtapositions. If you look at some of the photos, the open spaces look almost like abstract paintings, while the dense developments look like keys on a keyboard,” Beck said. Said. “They’re like two different worlds.”
One photo that particularly stands out to Beck shows a mobile home community next to a green field. The houses are arranged so that they look like flowers when viewed from above.
“The people who live there,
From the photo exhibition “Flight Patterns” that explores the relationship between the natural world and man-made objects. (Courtesy of John Beck)
“I don’t know that it looks like a flower from above,” he said.
When he decided to continue this photo series, he spent a lot of time exploring the bay from his bedroom.
“Instead of lying in bed at night and watching a movie or something before I go to sleep, I would fly over the Bay Area and try to find these patterns,” he says.
He was looking for attractive scenes and variety. “If you live next to a refinery, it’s not really open space, but it’s still pretty adjacent,” he said. “I mean, can you imagine seeing a refinery from your backyard?
“Sometimes I try to imagine myself in a place like this, but I never imagine eyes in the sky looking down on me.”
Beck’s interest in the visual contrast between the natural and human worlds is inspired, at least in part, by his appreciation of landscape.
Beck says that diversity is what makes the area special. “In less than a 30-minute drive, things can change dramatically,” he says.
In Benicia, where Beck lives, “there are these hills, and now the grass is dead and goldenrod, golden brown, but when winter comes, it will be Irish green.”
If you go
Content: “Flight Patterns” by John Beck
Date and time: October 30th – December 5th
Location: Benicia Public Library
