Charles C. Benton

Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California, USA
crisp@berkeley.edu

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Charles C. Benton’s photographic oeuvre is the product of a ten-year-long interest in taking photographs from kite-lofted cameras. As is evident from a quick perusal of his WWW site (Notes on Kite Aerial Photography) he harbors considerable passion for KAP and its associated historical, applied, and artistic dimensions. He is currently working on the Hidden Ecologies Project, an effort conducted as an Artist in Residence at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Benton makes occasional forays into panoramic photography, often airborne, with recent work centered on flying fisheye lenses positioned as though landing gear (facing straight downward).

Benton is a Professor of Architecture and former department chair at UC Berkeley. With principal academic interests lying in the Building Science area, he conducts teaching and research in Berkeley’s Building Science Laboratory as well as conducting a longstanding program of post-occupancy case studies. Recent courses include an undergraduate survey of Building Science and seminars covering microclimate, daylighting, and electric lighting fixture design, each sharing an approach that blends theory, experiments, and making. Benton also teaches occasional documentary photography courses in Visual Studies with an emphasis on reading the landscape.