Stephen Wilkes

where did he come from? where did he go?

Stephen Wilkes shares his photography inspirations and techniques

Biography

Since opening his studio in New York City in 1983, photographer & National Geographic Explorer Stephen Wilkes has built an unprecedented body of work and a reputation as one of America’s most iconic photographers, widely recognized for his fine art, editorial and commercial work.

Wilkes was born in 1957 in New York. He received his BS in photography from Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a minor in business management from the Whitman School of Management in 1980.

In 1998, a one-day assignment to the south side of Ellis Island led to a 5-year photographic study of the island’s long abandoned medical wards where immigrants were detained before they could enter America. Through his photographs and video, Wilkes helped secure $6 million toward the restoration of the south side of the island after completing his study.

In 2000, Epson America commissioned Wilkes to create a millennial portrait of the United States, “America In Detail,” a 52-day odyssey that was exhibited in locations such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Wilkes’ work documenting the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy has brought heightened awareness to the realities of global climate change. He was commissioned by the Annenberg. Space for Photography to revisit New Orleans in 2013 after documenting Hurricane Katrina for the World Monuments Fund. His photographs on Hurricane Sandy were exhibited in the 2014 Sink or Swim, Designing for a Sea of Change exhibition at the Annenberg Center for Photography.

Day to Night, Wilkes’ most defining project, began in 2009. These epic cityscapes and landscapes, portrayed from a fixed camera angle for up to 30 hours, capture fleeting moments of humanity as light passes in front of his lens over the course of a full day. Blending these images into a single photograph takes months to complete. Day to Night has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning as well as dozens of other prominent media outlets and with a grant from the National Geographic Society, was extended to include America’s National Parks in celebration of their centennial anniversary and Bird Migration for the 2018 Year of the Bird. Most recently a new grant was extended by the National Geographic Society for Day to Night of Canadian Species and Habitats at Risk in collaboration with The Royal Canadian Geographic Society. Day to Night : In the Field with Stephen Wilkes, a solo exhibition was exhibited at The National Geographic Museum in 2018. A solo exhibition, Day to Night: Photographs by Stephen Wilkes was exhibited at the Fenimore Museum in Cooperstown in May, 2023. Day to Night was published by TASCHEN as a monograph in 2019 and reprinted in 2023.

Despite his intense dedication to personal projects, Wilkes continues to shoot advertising campaigns for the world’s leading agencies and corporations, including: Apple, Netflix, OppenheimerFunds, Gallup, SAP, IBM, Capital One, The New Yorker, Johnson & Johnson, DHL, American Express, Nike, Sony, Verizon, IBM, AT&T, Rolex, Honda. He has a robust following on Instagram of more than 590,000.