Long Exposure Photos Capture the Light Paths of Drones Above Mountainous Landscapes

Photographer Reuben Wu creates images that reveal an alien splendor in natural and manmade landscapes across the globe. Previously he has explored the brilliant blue rivers of molten sulfur in Indonesian volcanoes, and photographed the thousands of glistening mirrors that compose Nevada’s SolarReserve. For his ongoing series Lux Noctis, the Chicago-based photographer utilizes modified drones as aerial light sources, illuminating obscure landscapes in a way that makes each appear new and unexplored.

Recently Wu has evolved his process of working with the drones to form light paths above topographical peaks in the mountainous terrain. “I see it as a kind of ‘zero trace’ version of land art where the environment remains untouched by the artist, and at the same time is presented in a sublime way which speaks to 19th century Romantic painting and science and fictional imagery,” said Wu.

The light from his GPS-enabled drones create a halo effect around some of the presented cliffs and crests when photographed using a long exposure. An elegant circle of light traces the flight of the drone, leaving a mark only perceptible in the resulting photograph.

Reuben Wu (born 1975) is a photographer, director, music producer and member of the electronic band Ladytron. His role in the band is keyboardist, songwriter and producer.

Reuben Wu is a photographer, director, music producer and member of the band Ladytron, based in Chicago, USA.

Born in Liverpool, he grew up in North West England and trained in Industrial Design at Sheffield Hallam University. He met Daniel Hunt in Liverpool in 1994 and formed Ladytron with him in 1999, along with Mira Aroyo and Helen Marnie.

He graduated in 1997 and finished his MSc in 1998 at University of Liverpool before working as an industrial designer until going full-time with the band in 2002. Wu hand drew the artwork of the UK edition of Ladytron’s first album 604 and began to document his travels on tour with the band via photography. His visual art career began in 2012 once the band took a break and he was able to focus full-time on his own creative output. We had since created artistic content for GE, Apple’s “Shot On iPhone” campaign, Jaguar Land Rover, Google and Interscope amongst others.

Wu and Hunt set up the Liverpool club night in 2003 Evol and bar Korova in 2005.

Wu produced and co-wrote two songs “Birds of Prey” and “Little Dreamer” for Christina Aguilera’s 2010 album Bionic.

In 2017, he also photographed the artwork for Zedd & Alessia Cara’s double platinum single Stay (Zedd and Alessia Cara song) and Zedd & Liam Payne’s single Get Low (Zedd and Liam Payne song) in collaboration with Samuel Burgess-Johnson.

You can see more of Wu’s landscape photography on his Instagram and Facebook.