Britain’s Stone Age Building Boom

How do you photograph one of the world’s most recognized places in a new way? This was the main challenge I faced working on a story about Stonehenge and other Neolithic monuments across Britain for National Geographic. Roughly 5,000 years after these monuments were erected, and 400 years after the first excavation at Stonehenge, there are still a slew of unanswered questions about how these monuments came to be, their purpose, and their future.

The continued sense of passion and wonder for Stonehenge and monuments of the Neolitic felt critical to highlight — archaeologists, tourists, druids, and Britains feel incredibly passionately about these monuments today. Photographer Reuben Wu photographed a handful of these Neolithic monuments using his iconic method of attaching a light panel to a drone and illuminating the structures from above, weaving the multiple exposures together to create the final image (read more about Reuben’s process here). Alice Zoo documented the active work and passion connected to these places — from excavations, to protests and ceremonies, she captured the range of emotions for why Stonehenge and other monuments still matter to people today just as much as they did 5,000 years ago.

This project was an incredible team effort on all of our platforms and included an AR experience on Instagram, behind the scenes TikTok and story, Instagram story, podcast episode and interactive graphic. See more below.