Stephen Wilkes

Stephen Wilkes (b. 1957) is a pioneering American photographer known for his innovative approach to time and storytelling through imagery. Since opening his studio in New York City in 1983, Wilkes has built a reputation for compelling fine art, editorial, and commercial work that challenges the conventions of photographic representation.

His most defining project, Day to Night, began in 2009. Using a fixed camera position, Wilkes captures over 1,000 images across a 24- to 30-hour period and then seamlessly blends them into a single photograph. These panoramic compositions depict the transition from day to night in iconic locations, revealing the passage of time in one still frame. The project has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and across major media outlets. With a National Geographic Society grant, Wilkes expanded the series to document America’s National Parks for their centennial and bird migration for the 2018 Year of the Bird. In 2018, Day to Night: In the Field with Stephen Wilkes was exhibited at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC.

Wilkes’s photographs are held in the collections of the George Eastman Museum, the James A. Michener Art Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the 9/11 Memorial Museum, the Library of Congress, and the National Geographic Museum, among others. His work has also been exhibited at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and The Historic New Orleans Collection. Editorially, his images have appeared in and on the covers of The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Time, Fortune, National Geographic, and Sports Illustrated.

Earlier in his career, Wilkes explored documentary subjects such as mainland China, California’s Highway One, and his impressionistic Burned Objects series. These projects set the foundation for a practice that blends storytelling, precision, and a deep sense of place.

His many accolades include the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, Adweek’s Photographer of the Year, the 2004 Lucie Award for Fine Art Photographer of the Year, TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Photographs of 2012, the Sony World Photography Award, the Adobe Breakthrough Photography Award, and nomination for the Prix Pictet. Wilkes serves on advisory boards including the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications, the Goldring Arts Journalism Board, and previously, the Save Ellis Island Board of Directors. Through his groundbreaking process, Stephen Wilkes continues to expand photography’s ability to capture the complexity and beauty of a single moment stretched across time.