Day and night: the incredible urban landscapes of Stephen Wilkes (Stephen Wilkes)

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Usually one particular moment is captured in the photo. One press of the shutter button fixes a short time. You can not learn from the picture what happened before or what will happen after. But Steven Wilkes collects the moments, he takes a long time from one point until he has enough frames to tell the story of one place. Panorama, shot on a clear day, gradually turns into a night landscape. These striking images met day and night time. It's a lot of things that have merged into one image.

Wilkes chooses the well-known landmarks that make up part of our collective memory, for example, Times Square and Washington's shopping mall.

The photographer wakes up before dawn and often uses a crane to get a view from a height of at least 15 m. He takes the first pictures at dawn. For 12-15 hours of shooting, Stephen Wilkes makes from 1200 to 1500 shots. About 50 of them will be included in the final photo, the editing process can take several months.

This is a selfless work, because during photography, the photographer does not have breaks for lunch or toilet. For each picture, he needs a frame in which he will capture the space without extraneous objects. Wilks calls him "bare plate", on which he imposes details from all other images. "It's like a Rubik's cube in real time in my brain," the author says.

Wilks studied the work of the artist David Hockney, who often shot 250 images of one scene, and then juxtaposed them together to create a sense of temporary leap. On the set, Wilkes decided to take pictures of the Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes stars hugging, and then the camera drove away and he captured the reflection as they kissed a second later. A completed complex image simultaneously shows both contrasting images.

For the project & laquo; Day & night & raquo; Wilks is trying to add a sense of the impermanence of the landscape, capturing random events that unfold against his background. Most often, unexpected things happen. During the shooting in Times Square, there was an airborne alarm, and the police quickly cleared one of the busiest places on Earth, turned out to be a ghost town. While photographing on the pier of Santa Monica, he saw a man in handcuffs and a police car. This image later Wilkes neatly connected with a picture of children running with balloons.

His photos became very popular on the Internet, so Wilkes decided to expand the geography of his project. He recently filmed in Shanghai, Paris and London, and this month he plans to photograph the Thanksgiving Day Parade Macy.

Steven Wilkes & ndash; an artistic and commercial photographer from New York. He was awarded Photo District News (Award of Excellence) in 2011 and 2012. He is represented at the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Los Angeles and at the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe.

The author shares his thoughts about each of the iconic urban species.

1. Wrigley Field Stadium in Chicago, 2013

This photo is a rare phenomenon for the major league baseball. Wrigley Field is the Big Temple of Baseball. It will radically change over the next year, as it will install giant electronic scoreboards.

2. Coney Island, Brooklyn, 2011

It was one of those beautiful days when it's time to soak up the beach. The weather was warm and sunny. I even managed to capture the race of the regatta off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

3. Iron, New York, 2010

This photo was taken on 11/11/2010. I felt that this image reflects the state in which we are, the inhabitants of New York. Life moves on, but we continue to feel the past.

4. Millenium Park, Chicago, 2013

Millennium Park is the perfect place to capture the beauty of Chicago. We waited until 21:30 to take a picture of the fireworks, but at nine o'clock in the evening the weather changed dramatically. A monsoon rain came that allowed one of the most important elements in this photo to be captured.

5. Inauguration of the President, Washington DC, 2013

For this photo, we climbed a 50-foot lift in the center of the National Mall during the morning meeting of the president's inauguration. In the evening, a gusty wind broke, if it had started 5 minutes earlier, then we would not have a single night photo.

6. Washington Square, New York, 2009

One of my favorite memories is associated with this snapshot. I noticed several men dressed in tuxedos and there was nothing extraordinary about it except that all these guys had big white rabbit heads.

7. Shanghai, China, 2012

One of my favorite elements of this image is the transition point, where the day turns into night. I managed to capture one boat in the daytime, and then again in the night. If you look carefully, you can see how the boat changes from day to night.

8. Gramercy Park, New York, 2011

This is a veritable oasis of greenery in lower Manhattan and the only private park in New York. I was lucky enough to capture this species, showing activity inside the park and night outside it.

9. New York Library, New York, 2011

During the shooting on 5th Avenue, capturing the noise and flow of people, I especially liked watching a group of construction workers who had dinner sitting on the outside of the library wall looking at people. This picture reminded me of a well-known photograph of Charles C. Ebbets, "Lunch in the Skyscraper", which he made in 1932.

10. Central Park, New York, 2010

I always liked to photograph a snowstorm in New York. Having discovered this amazing view from the editorial assignment, I agreed to return and shoot from this place. A few months later, we passed one of the most snowstorms.

11. The Western Wall, Jerusalem, 2013

We spent months studying every aspect of the Western Wall, looking at her countless images. Then it was found out that three times a year almost 100,000 people pray near the wall. I immediately decided that this should be in the foreground of the narrative in the photograph. We made this image for the day of the "priestly blessing" or & quot; birkat-cohonym & quot; during the Sukkot holiday in October 2012. I photographed for 18 hours and made over 1800 images.

12. Fountain in Central Park, New York, 2011

This is a snapshot of the project & laquo; Day & night & raquo; I did in one of my favorite places in Central Park. During the day, I saw brides, who were photographed there. Then we learned that this day was a holiday of Love in the Korean calendar. Thus, all the girls were Korean brides who wanted to be photographed on that day. All of them added a magical element to this image.

13. Times Square, New York, 2010

It was one of the most complex frames in terms of lighting. I decided that in those places where there is a shadow in the photo, there will be night, and where there is sunshine, there is a day. Day and night alternate as your eyes move down the Times Square.