Every day, 25-thousand motorists slog the long 17.7 mile East Bay commute on Vasco Road between Brentwood and Livermore. And while it’s likely most of them have driven it longer than Raymond Figueroa - few have seen it as close-up.
“I came out one afternoon and went down Vasco,” Figueroa said. “And I was totally enamored of it.”
Figueroa became one of Vasco’s daily commuters several years ago when he and his wife, Julie, bought a house in Brentwood. He began driving Vasco each day to his job as a programmer at a Pleasanton senior home. With each commute he began to mentally catalog the rural scenery lining the road - from its giant wind turbines to its decaying barns.
“Finally I told my wife somebody needs to take pictures of Vasco before it goes away,” Figueroa said, shouldering his camera bag.
With a gifted camera, Figueroa began making weekly sojourns along the road to take pictures -- a sun rise over a vineyard, a barn painted with an American flag, a rainbow rising over a Vasco bend. Figueroa began scaling the grassy hills to capture the shots that reverberated in his mind, seeking out the “treasures” along the road.
“For a while I just wanted to focus on the landscape on the beauty,” Figueroa said. “But it’s so inseparable with the people.”
As his fascination with the road took deeper root, Figueroa began introducing himself at farms along the road - hoping to make inroads with the people who had settled on the road decades back. Many ignored him. A few warily allowed him in.
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“At first I thought what’s this guy doing?” said fifth-generation Vasco rancher Dennis Rooney.
When Figueroa returned with his three children, Rooney let down his guard, allowing Figueroa to run amok, taking endless photographs of old rusted cars and his janky barn. Eventually, he came around to Figueroa’s mission.
“Let other people see what’s happening on the road over the years,” Rooney said, watching as Figueroa photographed his trough.
As Figueroa began to seek out the stories behind his photos, he started turning-up at the reference room of the East Contra Costa Historical Society - where he met Vasco Road native Kathy Leighton - who grew-up on the ranch marked by the flag-covered barn, which appears in one of his photos.
“He’s gotten some beautiful pictures,” said Leighton, who as a child played on a mostly car-less Vasco Road, “and made me take a whole different look at the road when i go down it.”
Along his journey, Figueroa has become the combing eyes of commuters stuck behind their steering wheels, navigating familiar asphalt on a mind-numbing daily slog. He's become a collector of the tiny things unseen from windshields.
“I’m ever amazed that wherever you go,” said Leighton, “if you kick over the right rock you’re going to find something awesome.”
Vasco Road has a notorious reputation for numerous and deadly accidents. And though authorities of the road have made numerous improvements, Figueroa still comes across the road-side altars for the victims.
“It has its horror stories,” said Figuera, who made the decision not to photograph the crosses, out of respect to the victims’ families. Instead, he trains his lens on the beauty.
“Looking east at a sunrise,” he said of one photo, “you can see the backlit silhouette of the Sierras.”
After clicking hundreds of photos, and collectively stories of the road’s early days, Figueroa is now planning to release a photo book he intends to call “Photos Along the Journey.”
The amateur photographer sees it as a tribute to the road and the people who live near it - or spend large chunks of their lives navigating its circuitous path.
“I think that’s what I wanted people to know,” said Figueroa, pacing through a grape vineyard. “You’re not driving in vain, there’s really a lot of beauty here.”
