We first came across the work of Stephen Wilkes’ images in National Geographic, and his Day to Night™ images stopped us in our tracks. They somehow showed us scenes never seen in one single image before.
After editing over 1500+ images Wilkes seamlessly blends approximately 50 of the best moments of the Day and Night to create one single photograph. We see landscapes and cityscapes captured from the exact same location over the course of one day.
For a New York cityscape, we see the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge, and a moody purple sky on the left. As the image shifts to the right, we see skyscrapers reflecting the sun, and the cirrus clouds of daytime above.
Unlike timelapse, these images capture moments of time, and are seamlessly stitched together to create one flawless end product.
You can see more of Wilkes’ beautiful work, which extend beyond the Day to Night™ series on his website.
Images © Stephen Wilkes. Used with artist’s permission.
“Day to Night is a 14 year personal journey to capture fundamental elements of our world through the hourglass of a single day. It is a synthesis of art and science, an exploration of time, memory, and history through the 24- hour rhythms of our daily lives.I photograph from locations and views that are part of our collective memory. Working from a fixed camera angle, I capture the fleeting moments of humanity and light as time passes. After photographing as many as 1500 single images, I select the best moments of the day and night. Using time as my guide, all of these moments are then seamlessly blended into a single photograph – a visualization of our conscious journey with time.
In a world where humanity has become obsessively connected to personal devices, the ability to look profoundly and contemplatively is becoming an endangered human experience. Photographing a single place for up to 36 hours becomes a meditation. It has informed me in a unique way, inspiring deep insights into life’s narrative, and the fragile interaction of humanity within our natural and constructed world.”
-Stephen Wilkes
