Art from Above: Vermont (Art from Above, 3)
Caleb Kenna is a freelance photographer and certified drone pilot who lives in Middlebury, Vermont. Art from Above: Vermont is a striking collection of drone aerial photos of the Champlain Valley.
For artists, painters, photographers, and sculptors, point of view is an important spatial relationship that impacts any work. Drone photographer Kenna focuses on the bird’s eye-view perspective, an overhead shot wherein the camera is placed somewhere around a 90-degree angle above the scene. This angle presents an expansive view and captures multiple dimensions. Kenna uniquely portrays the Vermont landscape in 130 breathtaking images. These images affirm why people opt for a window seat on an airplane.
Peering down into a landscape from high above renders a landscape somewhat less recognizable. These images captured from above present as paintings. Recognizable geography is eclipsed by an intriguing composition of patterns, shapes, textures, and colors.
Art from Above: Vermont deserves a spot on any coffee table. Art enthusiasts may view Kenna’s works as abstractions, marveling at his skill in uncovering beauty in the world at large and recording at a unique angle scenes, shadows, lighting, and colors in the environment. Kenna ‘s pieces have an interesting effect because they are simultaneously expansive and intimate. One shot that features a lone red kayak on a body of water that is bordered by dense greenery on both shores conveys a bucolic solitude as well as the daunting immensity of the greenery that surrounds it.
Shadow and light are key elements in Kenna’s imagery. In some cases lighting adds depth to better identify the landscape. In others the shadow play forms an abstract pattern that, while enhancing the image artistically, actually makes the subject less identifiable. Patterning is another element of Kenna’s photography. By highlighting recurring natural patterns that are only visible in the bird’s eye-view perspective—a dense forest of trees, tire tracks or footprints in the snow, clouds, shadows, crops, ripples in water—Kenna forms an exciting work of art.
Caleb Kenna inspires the viewer to appreciate all things in the world around. The aerial drone imagery in Art from Above: Vermont inspires us to look around and appreciate the beauty that is all around.