Darren Pearson' Light Painting Photographs of Nevada
By Chadd Scott on
When Travel Nevada reached out to Darren Pearson about the possibility of him road tripping through the state, he jumped at the chance. Officials at the state’s tourism office had become captivated by Pearson’s light painting photographs and wanted him to use the Silver State as a fresh backdrop. Not Vegas. Sin City gets enough attention; Travel Nevada wants travelers to know there’s more to the state than its most prominent place.
The results of Pearson’s excursion can be seen through April 6, 2026, at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas – hey, you can’t escape it all together.
“I was familiar with Las Vegas and Reno and Lake Tahoe, and I've been through other parts of Nevada like the higher elevation areas, but not as extensive as this road trip,” Pearson, who lives in Southern California, explained of the journey. “I took it to places I'd never been before.”
Remote places.
Remote and spectacular like Cathedral Gorge State Park 165 miles north of Vegas.
Remote and eerie like the state’s innumerable ghost towns.
“That's one thing I didn't realize about going around the state of Nevada, how many ghost towns there were,” Pearson said. “That seems to be a focal point of some of the tourism that surrounds these ‘out there’ locations.”
Nevada, in fact, has more ghost towns than embodied towns. It’s 600-plus recognized ghost towns, remnants of mining booms and busts, easily outnumbering its active, populated cities.
Darren Pearson, 'Ichthyosaur,' light painting photograph. Photo courtesy of Travel Nevada and DARIUSTWIN. ©️ 2024 DARIUSTWIN
What is Light Painting Photography?
Darren Pearson, working professionally as DARIUSTWIN, is a light painting photographer and animator whose glowing creations have illuminated landscapes around the world. Using long-exposure photography, Pearson "paints" with a custom LED pen he calls the Night-Writer, stepping out of frame before the shutter closes. Pearson draws with light in-camera – no Photoshop, compositing, artificial intelligence, or tricks.
“National Geographic” detailed his process in 2022.
Pearson “discovered” light painting flipping through a photography coffee table book back in 2007.
“The one (picture) that really caught my eye was this Picasso image, and it was because he had drawn using a light source, and then, like a flash photo happened, and he's just standing there looking at the camera, holding this wired light source,” Pearson explained. “It blew my mind because I'd never seen light captured this way, and I didn't know that you could illustrate with a light source and have (light) hanging in the air like a physical object.”
Picasso was famously introduced to light painting by a “LIFE” magazine photographer in 1949.
Pearson was captivated. He peppered a photographer friend of his about the process and how it works.
“We set up in my living room and I tried a few,” he remembers. “I was like, ‘This is the coolest thing I've ever come across!’”
Nearly 20 years of light painting photography later, Pearson still thinks it’s the coolest.
Achieving his dramatic results requires a good deal of trial and error. Still. Setting his camera up on a tripod, he frames the landscape he’ll draw on. From there, he looks for a point of reference in the shot he can align his image around.
Darren Pearson, 'Stargazing Skeletons,' light painting photograph. Photo courtesy of Travel Nevada and DARIUSTWIN. ©️ 2024 DARIUSTWIN
Neon in Nature
Pearson’s “The Neon in Nature Series” photographs taken during his week-long adventure across Nevada capture stunning landscapes and striking night skies. The artist went out, way out. Nevada ranks as America’s seventh largest state by size and with Vegas and Reno/Tahoe near and on its borders, there’s an enormous middle and eastern section most visitors never experience.
“The vastness of the landscapes and the isolation of some of the roads – some of the places going from point A to point B, I'd look at the map and I'd say, ‘Okay, it's four and a half hours. How many miles? Whoa, it's hundreds and hundreds of miles. And how many places to stop for gas. Only here,’” he remembers. “The vastness of the landscape was eye opening for me. Some of these desert landscapes go on for hundreds and hundreds of miles.”
Pearson painted in ghost towns. He painted beneath cliffs. He painted dinosaurs and aliens – favored subjects throughout his career. Subjects well-known to Nevada.
Darren Pearson, 'Alien Abbey Road,' light painting photography. Photo courtesy of Travel Nevada and DARIUSTWIN. ©️ 2024 DARIUSTWIN
Travelers can enjoy Pearson’s photographs then head out and recreate his explorations across the state. Travel Nevada has put together 10 easy to follow road trips showing off the state’s “way out” side. The loneliest road in America. The “Rubies Route.” The “Extraterrestrial Highway.” A “Free Range Art Highway” the tourism bureau describes as “where psychedelic free-range art meets the American West.”
Road trips and landscapes that will inspire you to take pictures of your own.
