Mike Butler – Architectural Photographer
Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island, Georgia, is a stunning natural wonder where time and tides create a constantly evolving landscape of driftwood sculptures. While most photographers flock here for the golden hours of sunrise and sunset, my approach is entirely unique—I explore this iconic location at night, transforming it with dramatic and experimental lighting techniques.
In this ongoing series, I use a combination of traditional ground-based lighting and innovative drone-mounted lighting systems to craft atmospheric, otherworldly scenes. The drone’s sky-based lighting provides dynamic highlights that complement the precision of ground lights, opening up creative possibilities that were once impossible without prohibitively expensive tools like helicopters or tethered balloons. This fusion of techniques allows me to reimagine the interplay of shadows and light, unveiling textures and dimensions that are otherwise hidden in the darkness.
As the trees on Driftwood Beach continually shift and change, each shoot presents a fresh canvas for this evolving art form. Whether you’re captivated by photography, art, or the technical ingenuity of drone lighting, this series pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in landscape photo art.
