Scott Haefner is a photographer and urban explorer based in the San Francisco Bay area. He primarily shoots urban and scenic landscapes, often employing kites to suspend a camera 50-300 feet above the surface.
Scott’s work has been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers, and books, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, BBC News, Photo District News and Photo Techniques, as well as specials on the Discovery and History Channels.
In today’s age of satellite imaging and Google Earth, kite aerial photography (KAP) produces images similar to the perspective experienced by birds in flight. Of interest to me in the process of making KAP photographs is that they are performances unto themselves. Flying a kite at low altitude with a servo-driven camera attached is part bio-mechanical action and part random interaction with the natural elements. Indeed, Haefner’s KAP photos are determined in part by which way the wind blows.
In this series curated for Add-Art, Scott appears in some of the frames. But Scott’s KAP photos are more than just self portraits; they are portraits depicting our planet. Haefner’s photos are moments in time captured as bits and bytes–digital records of unique and mostly West Coast USA urban and remote landscapes.
It was in California that I met Scott while producing the machine earthwork “PIEQF” during the summer of 02008. Scott, who is a geologist / web developer for the U.S. Geological Survey, made two visits to Parkfield to photograph the installation. Between these visits, Scott also photographed the “Spiral Jetty” located on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The results are included in this series of non-ads.
It has been a great pleasure to curate this Add-Art show of Scott’s “birdseye” KAP photographs. Some images become so molecular in perspective that it can be difficult to work out what you’re actually looking at. Like the infinite nature of salt crystals themselves, if he were here NoW, I’m sure Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty creator, would be smiling at the non-site position of art in the landscape in this series of images viewed in a web browser–replacing the notion that everything is for sale.
D.V.Rogers
June 2009
