Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
It started with an accident—or, in this case, more of a pleasant surprise. Back in 2014, Reuben Wu was shooting in California’s Trona Pinnacles national park at night when he realized something unexpected had wormed its way into his photographs. A truck’s headlights had illuminated the surrounding landscape; but, rather than being discouraged by a possibly ruined image, Wu was struck by inspiration.
“[There was] this lighting effect that shouldn’t naturally exist, sparking the idea of using artificial light in remote natural environments,” Wu tells My Modern Met.
It didn’t take long for the British photographer to develop this approach further, experimenting with attaching lights to drones and sending them off across vast terrains. Eventually, he incorporated long exposure techniques to make visible the drone’s flight paths, resulting in spectral, luminous sheets that hang like ice in the air. In Wu’s practice, these delicate traces even have a name: aeroglyphs.
“What [compels] me is the ability to reveal landscapes in ways impossible to see with the naked eye, creating images that exist in a dimension of time visible only through photography,” Wu explains.
Aeroglyphs are at the heart of Thin Places, Wu’s newest photographic series. Each image dramatizes the point of contact between these invisible, curtain-like structures and the monumental landscape around them, balancing a sense of solitude, presence, and ethereality all at once. As its title suggests, Thin Places is no stranger to these themes, with its title referencing the concept of “locations where the boundary between the material world and something deeper feels reduced,” according to the photographer.
“[Thin Places] is about recreating moments where our perception shifts and familiar landscapes reveal hidden depths,” Wu adds. “I’m drawn to remote places that offer solitude and a sense of discovery, often sites where the separation between the material and immaterial feels thin.”
Even with the most precursory glance, it’s clear that Thin Places captures that fragility, uncovering the thresholds between the familiar and the extraordinary. Wu’s treatment of his chosen site only enhances the series’s overall atmosphere, juxtaposing the “permeable and alive” light patterns with stark, severe landscapes that don’t detract from the photograph’s focal point. In fact, that’s the whole idea.
“The goal isn’t to impose my vision on these landscapes, but to create a dialogue between the artificial and natural elements that reveals something new about these places,” Wu says. “The geographical context shapes every decision.”
Thin Places isn’t the only series that incorporates aeroglyphs. Created last year, Wu’s SIREN series also explores how “light forms respond to their environment,” moving away from geometric precision in favor of an organic flow. Here, the same ghostly curtains return, but, this time, they hover over waves that lap at a sandy beach. In the sky, there are what appear to be auroras, bathing each scene with an almost haunting glow.
“In SIREN, the movement of the waves actually modulates the light source during long exposures,” Wu clarifies. “Thin Places explores this further.”
These photographs are both eerie and otherworldly, as if the earth itself is breathing and expelling these light formations—and that’s exactly what Wu hopes to conjure.
“I hope people feel that sense of wonder about our world and recognize that extraordinary beauty exists all around us, waiting to be revealed through different ways of seeing,” Wu concludes. “Ultimately, it’s about renewing our perception of the places we inhabit and our connection to the natural world.”
To learn more about the artist and Thin Places, visit Reuben Wu’s website.
Reuben Wu exploits long-exposure photography and drones attached with lights to create luminous, curtain-like structures.
Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
The photographer’s newest series, Thin Places, explores the relationship between presence, solitude, ethereality, dramatizing the boundaries between material and spiritual worlds.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Photograph from the “Thin Places” series.
Thin Places builds off of SIREN, an earlier photographic series by Wu.
Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
Photograph from the “SIREN” series.
