One of the most popular ways that drones are being used are to capture incredible images.  Film and photography with drones allow us to see the world from an entirely new perspective.  With the HD cameras that drones can support, some of the birds eye images they show us are truly mesmerizing.  However, one artist is finding a way to amaze viewers not with a drone, but with a drone as his subject.

Reuben Wu was born in 1975 in Liverpool, England.  In the early 90s while still in England he met his future band mates, forming the band Ladytron.  He and the band were successful enough to gain some attention and quit their day jobs.  He even had the opportunity to produce and co-write two songs for Christina Aguilera’s 2010 album Bionic.  While touring with his band he began chronicling his adventures through photography.  Once the band took a break from touring Reuben was able to focus on his new found passion of photography.  He created content for Google, Interscope, Apple, GE, and more.

Through photography Reuben has found a way of connecting viewers with the world around him in groundbreaking ways.  Reuben specializes in landscape photography.  The landscapes he is most drawn to are highly unique and diverse areas.  As he explores deserts, volcanoes, or frozen vistas with his camera he is able to bring these landscapes alive.  One of the ways he has brought these distant parts of the world to light is by using drones in his landscape photography.

Recently he went on a two week road trip through Bolivia and brought home the most fascinating images of a part of the world that is rarely seen.  While there, he and his friends came across Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, a 4,000sq mile salt flat, the largest in the world.  The salt flat was formed after prehistoric lakes evaporated, leaving behind a vast white flat landscape that looks like it is from another world.  During the rainy season the flats are submerged under perfectly still water.  The water is so flat and still that it creates a mirror like effect, reflecting the sky above.  As the water evaporates salt deposits are left behind.  The salt forms polygon crusts along the ground.  The result looks almost like the scaly skin of an albino reptile.  Looking at images of these landscapes it’s hard to believe that they exist.  But when Wu adds a drone to the image as a subject it makes them eerily tangible.

Wu said that he hadn’t originally intended to use drones in his images, but instead needed them as a tool to help him capture a vision.  He explained, “When I first started using drone lights in my photography, I just wanted to shoot landscapes at night and needed something to light the scene.”  The drones were simply there to give illumination to the project.  But as Wu began to go through the images on his camera he noticed something spectacular.  The light paths made by the drones were just as important as the landscape he was shooting.  He went on to say that at first, “I didn’t include the actual light paths. but then I noticed how the different shapes created by the light interacted with the landscape and decided to keep them in the final image.   Now I see it as a way to involve myself with the landscape, as the personal mark I add to a specific scenery.”

The resulting images are uncanny.  Reuben programs the drones to fly along a specific path creating aeroglyphs while he photographs them.  The LED lights on the drones create a connect the dots like effect in the darkened landscape.  What is seen in the final picture is a glowing geometric shape hovering above polygonal salt flats, ribbons of light crisscrossing the sky and being reflected from the mirror like surface of still water on the ground, a beacon shooting down to a rocky plain, or a halo resting above some boulders.

The light from the drones take the hash landscape of the Bolivian salt flats and softens them with a dream like quality.  It’s amazing how a simple drone with LED lights can completely change the composition of the landscape through Wu’s camera.  Wu went on to say, “For me, everything’s a tool.  The camera’s a tool, the computer’s a tool. Just so long as the technology and the tools don’t overwhelm the vision.”  In this case a tool that is usually being used to take pictures becomes the subject of a photo.  It shows this untouched landscape in harmony with a modern piece of technology.  The drone is able to be that tool connecting the modern world to the ancient salt flats without distracting from the natural beauty of the landscape.

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