Stephen Wilkes

Wilkes' directorial debut, the documentary film, Jay Myself, world premiered at DOCNYC in November 2018. The film is an in-depth look into the world of photographer Jay Maisel and his move out of his 35,000 sq. foot building at 190 Bowery. Oscilloscope Laboratories acquired the North American rights and the film opened at Film Forum in NYC in July 2019. Wilkes was a speaker at the TED2016: Dream Conference on his Day to Night series and he participated in the TED Countdown Summit in October 2020.

In 2017 Wilkes was commissioned by the US Embassy, Ottawa to create a Day to Night photograph of Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation. In 2021 Wilkes, now a National Geographic Explorer, was once again commissioned by the National Geographic Society to create a Day to Night of the Biden/Harris Presidential Inauguration. The photograph was featured in National Geographic and exhibited at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in NYC.

Wilkes’ work documenting the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy were intended to heighten awareness and draw attention 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 2014 at the Annenberg Center for Photography.

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

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. His photographs and video helped secure donations upwards of $6 million for the restoration of the south side of Ellis Island. A monograph based on the work, Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom, was published in 2006 and was named one of TIME magazine’s 5 Best Photography Books of the Year. The work was also featured on NPR and CBS Sunday Morning.

Stephen Wilkes (born October 28, 1957) is an American photographer, photojournalist, director and fine artist. In 2009 he began work on the project, Day to Night. Featuring epic cityscapes and landscapes portrayed from a fixed camera angle for up to 30 hours, the work was designed to capture fleeting moments of humanity over the course of a full day. Day to Night was featured on CBS Sunday Morning as well as several other prominent media outlets and earned Wilkes a grant from the National Geographic Society, to extend the project to include America’s National Parks in celebration of their centennial anniversary and Bird Migration for the 2018 Year of the Bird. This was followed by an additional grant from the National Geographic Society allowing Wilkes to extend the series yet again with Day to Night of Canadian Iconic 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. Day to Night was published by TASCHEN as a monograph in 2019.

Wilkes was born in 1957 in New York. He received his BS in photography from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a minor in business management from the Whitman School of Management in 1980. Since opening his New York studio in 1983, Stephen Wilkes has built a sizable body of work, gaining him notoriety as a photographer and wide recognition for his fine art, editorial and commercial work.