> The idea was born from a mistake. One night near Death Valley, California, Wu set a camera to make a time-lapse series in the dark. A pickup truck drove by and washed out the scene with its harsh headlights.

> At first, says Wu, “I was really annoyed. But when I looked at the images, I was fascinated. Here was artificial lighting in a natural environment.”

The quote above indicates that Wu stumbled upon the technique by accident but, sandworm101 is correct, this technique has been known and widely used for decades. I know the technique as "painting with light" and a Google image search should convince any skeptics. Add "stars" to the search and you will see that the technique is often combined with star trails.

Using drones is a nice enhancement. The criticism about originality doesn't make Wu's images any less spectacular.

EDIT: The Luminous-Landscape article Introduction to Landscape Astrophotography [1] includes a section on "Light Painting".

[1] https://luminous-landscape.com/introduction-to-landscape-ast...