Lux Noctis – How Photographer Reuben Wu Lit Landscape With a Drone

(New Age music)

I'm Reuben Wu and I'm a photographer.

This project is a series of photographs

that show landscapes in the framework

of traditional landscape photography

and 19th Century Romantic painting.

But also influenced by science fiction and geological time.

The central idea of the aerial light

was to illuminate an otherwise obscure landscape,

evoking a new mood and atmosphere,

and also the fantastical notion of planetary exploration.

How can I change my own perspective

of our planet and make it new and unexplored?

My gear setup is pretty minimal.

A lot of it comes down to how much I can carry.

Many of my locations are quite remote.

And, I have to be able to hike to these places.

What I'm trying to do is to create imagery

with a very high production value,

but using very simple and portable gear.

I'm using three main tools.

The first one is the Fiilex AL250.

It's a very small, but powerful light

that actually mounts onto a drone.

I'll be flying it on the 3DR Solo.

And I'll be shooting the images with

the XF 100 megapixel camera system by Phase One.

(New Age music)

First, I scout my location, and once I've decided

on my composition, I prep my gear,

set up my shop, and wait until dark.

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Once it's dark enough, I fly the drone

with the AL250 mounted over my subject,

and capture a series of exposures on the XF,

which are about five seconds long,

and an f-stop of about eight, just to make sure

that everything is sharp.

For each exposure, I adjust the position

of the light so that I have the ability

to paint in exactly which elements I want

in post-production.

I've always wanted to experiment

with drones as lights, which could be positioned

anywhere in space.

And that is something that is only really possible

now with the AL250.

The light is very easy to use.

Once it's on the drone and up in the air,

it's a very nice, even, and soft quality.

It's that, combined with the stability

of the solar, which makes these images possible.

Working with the 100 megapixel camera,

I'm able to create digital photos

at a resolution previously only possible

with drum-scanned, medium-format film.

This gives me the freedom to use the images

for virtually any application.

And, in particular, making very large physical prints

for showcasing the final work.

The thing about medium-format digital in the past,

is that it hasn't been all that great

for long exposures and low-light.

But now that Phase One has the XF,

which uses a CMOS sensor, it really excels

in low-light photography.

We're overwhelmed every day by images

of our planet, and they're very beautiful.

But what I wanted to do was to go beyond that,

and show almost an abstraction of the landscape.

I suppose they're a little bit like portraits.

While using this light and this camera,

I'm able to show the elements that I want to keep,

and to disregard the elements that I don't.

I wanted to depict scenes which show not only

a new perspective of the landscape,

but also explore new technology adapting to create art.

Drones are amazing for creating imagery.

Not just as flying cameras, but also as flying light beams.

And this has allowed photographers like me

to shine light in places, which was never possible before.

(New Age music)