From showcasing the ghosts of Ellis Island to capturing an alternate dimension to the Season 4 campaign Stranger Things, Stephen Wilkes’ visuals aim to “make you feel something.”
“What I’m trying to do is capture a familiar place, but I want to show it to you in a way you’ve never seen before. I’m a storyteller,” National Geographic The photographer saidgood morning america. “
Wilkes is perhaps best known for his award-winning Day to Night series, in which he goes through the painstaking process of capturing the passage of time in a single picture.
“It takes months sometimes. I put cranes in places. I build scaffolding,” he said.
Wilkes will camp for up to 36 hours to create his signature photographs from day to night. He even stood on a rock for nearly 20 hours to capture his last panoramic photo of his “epic beach landscape” at Shi Shi Beach, Washington.
“When I went to Beers Ears [National Monument] At the Utah and Colorado border, we walked for over an hour and camped for three nights to catch the moon rising.”
His 20 years of experience in national parks and his keen focus on the passage of time have Wilkes witness to the drastic effects of climate change on the most beautiful landscapes on our planet.
“[In Canada’s Yukon territory]We were expecting 55-degree temperatures and migration, and we ended up getting 30-degree temperatures, winds up to 50 knots, and snow.”
He also noted that two weeks after filming in Yellowstone, the bridges he crossed collapsed when “the Yellowstone River overflowed with a scale and magnitude never seen before.”
Watching the world through the eyes of his newborn granddaughter has inspired Wilkes to continue to draw attention to the effects of climate change.
He said, “When you see the world through the eyes of a child, it touches your soul and makes me think, ‘What are we going to leave her with?'” What will her world be like 20 years from now? “
“We really had to change our behavior because we were the kind of constantly taking and not giving,” Wilkes added. “Our planet needs a host right now.”
Wilkes’ photos can be found in the September issue of National Geographic and on natgeo.com.
The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of National Geographic Partners and this ABC station.
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