Photographer Blends 15 Hours Into One Day Into Night Photo

Stephen Wilkes carefully chooses a camera angle (usually way up high, as in a cherry picker), parks his camera there and shoots continually for up to 15 hours, grabbing very specific fleeting moments. On average he ends up with about 1,000 images, which he then pares down to 25 or 30 and digitally blend them into one photograph in Photoshop to show a seamless transition form day to night.

He uses a large-format 4 x 5 camera with a 39-megapixel digital back, uses “aperture-priority” mode by keeping a constant f-stop and varying the shutter speed to obtain correct exposure as the light level changes. To ensure he is getting the shots he needs, his assistant periodically loads the images onto a laptop and does a rough pass at the final image. The final panorama can go up to gallery prints sized at 30 x 40 and 48 x 60 inches.

Wilkes will exhibit some of his panoramas at ClampArt Gallery in Manhattan from September 8 to October 29. Well worth a visit if you are in the area during that time.

Read the article at: PDN and view the photos at: ClampArt Gallery.