Wilkes battled the elements of unforgiving Paris in an 18-hour succession of shots to capture the Trocadero Gardens and the Eiffel Tower from a forklift truck 40 feet above the ground. 2014.
Cartier-Bresson, father of street photography and photojournalism, considered that the crucial thing to take a good photo was to shoot in the “decisive moment”. That single moment would freeze time, what was happening around him, in one image that summed it all up.
Stephen Wilkes, many decades later, goes one step further: “What feeling did the day leave us with? How did the sun move, how did the light change, how did the sense of space expand around you? Too often the photographs do not seem to be able to bring back the memory in all its rich intensity ”, He reflects.
Obsessed with the idea of capturing the moment in all its fullness, the photographer made it his mission group, in a single snapshot, everything that happens in one place during an entire day. “Day to Night has been a personal ten-year journey to capture the fundamental elements of our world through the span of a full day. It is a synthesis of art and science, and an exploration of time, memory and history through the 24-hour rhythms of our lives”, summarizes the author.
Brooklyn Bridge Park, 2016
To achieve the miracle, Wilkes chooses a point, usually high, from which he can focus everything that happens in one place with his panoramic camera. "After shoot about 1,500 images , I select the best moments of the day and night. Using time as a guide, I blend all of these moments into a single photograph, a visualization of our conscious journey through time."
This mammoth studio work, which lasts up to four months , is influenced by the work of great masters of painting and, in particular, by Bruegel. Thus, his painting The Harvest, which shows everything that happens in the countryside during the months of August and September in a single oil painting, was one of the greatest inspirations for the artist.
This approach to photography results in surprising, almost magical, images that truly “freeze” time; Otherwise, we would never be able to observe in detail and record in our memory what happens in iconic places in the world such as the Eiffel Tower, Times Square, Trafalgar Square or Vatican City.
Because Wilkes does not photograph just anything: he chooses spaces that mean something to humanity, both for their cultural and symbolic value and for their environmental value, since he also portrays natural sites that are difficult to reach for ordinary citizens, such as the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
“I spent 26 hours in an alligator hunting hide during a drought. All of these competitive species shared a single area with water, and they never even growled at each other. They seemed to understand the act of sharing"
These photographs that allow us to better understand our world are usually exhibited in gigantic sizes for greater appreciation, in impressions of about four and a half meters. Now, Taschen reduces the work to 42x33 centimeters, so that entire days of the most fascinating places on the planet fit in our hands.
The 260-page volume that collects the work is called Stephen Wilkes. day to night , and, in front of him, one can spend whole hours amazed, in a kind of Finding Wally that makes us feel both privileged tourists and little spies. For Wilkes, staking out and photographing them is, in fact, a kind of meditation.
“In a world where humanity has become obsessed with being connected, the ability to look deeply and contemplatively is becoming an endangered human experience. Photographing the same place for up to 36 hours becomes pure meditation. It has made me aware of things in a unique way, inspiring deep insights into the narrative of the world, and the fragile interactions of humanity within our natural and built world, "says the author.
Cover of the volume 'Stephen Wilkes. Day to Night' by Taschen