Photographer Page

Stephen Wilkes

In his “Day to Night” series, photographer Stephen Wilkes creates layered images recording the progression of time across a single landscape. In Serengeti National Park, he and his assistant spent 26 continuous hours perched on a platform 18 feet above a watering hole, recording moments manually. A selection from the resulting 2,200 frames were then painstakingly pieced together into a composite showing night giving way to day.

White flags planted on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. represent each of the American lives lost to COVID-19. When the art installation opened in September 2021, the country had surpassed 670,000 deaths. For more than 30 hours, photographer and National Geographic Explorer Stephen Wilkes watched people move through the sea of white flags, capturing individuals as they grappled with the enormity of loss. Wilkes took 4,882 photographs of the exhibit, then blended them into a single composite image as part of his Day to Night series.

Times Square lies almost deserted while the normally commercial billboards display messages of thanks to frontline medical workers: New York City, March 2020.

Stephen Wilkes documented an eruption in Iceland for 21 hours straight, making images of the fiery scene as day turned to night.

The inauguration ceremony looked very different in 2013 than it did in 2021. Nearly 200,000 American flags stand in for the crowd that would have attended in non-pandemic times, along with the flags of each state.

The inauguration ceremony looked very different in 2013 than it did in 2021. Nearly 200,000 American flags stand in for the crowd that would have attended in non-pandemic times, along with the flags of each state.

On January 21, 2013, the National Mall was crowded with people who had gathered to watch the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. Photographer Stephen Wilkes captured the scene at intervals throughout the day, then blended them seamlessly into one day-to-night image.

New York City’s nearly deserted Park Avenue—normally filled with a flurry of yellow taxis, motorbike messengers, and pedestrians—is a dramatic example of how efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus have emptied city centers.

During breeding season, 150,000 gannets throng Scotland's Bass Rock island in the Firth of Forth. In winter the birds decamp south as far as West Africa. To make this image, photographer Stephen Wilkes and an assistant lugged his gear 122 steps uphill and set up near the ruins of a church about six feet from the nesting birds. Standing on the rocky ground for 28 sleepless hours, he took 1,176 photos. “It’s like a meditative state,” he says. “I’m alert to everything. I’m seeing everything.” He selected about 150 photos to make this image.