Thursday Salute to Originals: Droning Light
Experimental photography uses light and motion to highlight the beauty of Southwestern landscapes.
Chicago-based photographer Reuben Wu is known for his landscape photography that focuses on unique and strange terrestrial textures. Light Storm, Wu’s most recent photography series, brought the photographer to the rocky terrains of Utah and New Mexico.
The luminous shapes featured in Light Storm are created using drones. With long-exposure techniques, Wu captures the programmed geometric paths as glowing streaks, halos, and curves through the sky. Each shape spotlights a special feature of the landscape, from red mountain peaks to white streaks within organic red rocks.
Wu is deeply inspired by topography, and “painting” each landscape with light allows the photographer to have a creative influence on these pictures without impacting delicate ecosystems or digital alterations — it is a pure and clean creative venture.
“Instead of the old photographers’ adage of waiting for the right moment, I’m literally creating it from my position behind the camera. It also allows me to have more creative ownership over a photograph of a landscape,” said Wu in an interview with This is Colossal.
This Thursday, we are saluting Reuben Wu and his Light Storm photography series. You can view more photographs on his Instagram and Website.
Sources: Reuben Wu, This is Colossal