Temporal Mosaic

Photographer Stephen Wilkes crafts stunning compositions of landscapes as they transition from day to night, exploring the space-time continuum within a two-dimensional still photograph. ted

Day to Night is about all the things, it's like a compilation of all the things I love about the medium of photography. It's about landscape, it's about street photography, it's about color, it's about architecture, perspective, scale — and, especially, history.

TED stephen_wilkes_the_passing_of_time_caught_in_a_single_photo Presented Feb 2016.

And finally, my most recent image, which has such a special meaning for me personally: this is the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. And this is photographed in the middle of the Seronera, this is not a reserve.

I went specifically during the peak migration to hopefully capture the most diverse range of animals. Unfortunately, when we got there, there was a drought going on during the peak migration, a five-week drought. So all the animals were drawn to the water. I found this one watering hole, and felt if everything remained the same way it was behaving, I had a real opportunity to capture something unique.

We spent three days studying it, and nothing could have prepared me for what I witnessed during our shoot day. I photographed for 26 hours in a sealed crocodile blind, 18 feet in the air. What I witnessed was unimaginable. Frankly, it was Biblical.

We saw, for 26 hours, all these competitive species share a single resource called water. The same resource that humanity is supposed to have wars over during the next 50 years. The animals never even grunted at each other. They seem to understand something that we humans don't. That this precious resource called water is something we all have to share.

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Tim Urban describes Stephen Wilkes' Incredible “Day to Night” Photography. post