Name: 【TED】Stephen Wilkes: The passing of time, caught in a single photo (The passing of time, caught in a single photo | Stephen Wilkes)
Uploaded: 2017-04-06T08:36:20.000Z
Duration: 12 min 37 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Photography can be described as the recording of a single moment

Each moment or photograph represents a tangible piece

But what if you could capture more than one moment in a photograph?

What if a photograph could actually collapse time,

compressing the best moments of the day and the night

I've created a concept called "Day to Night"

My process begins by photographing iconic locations,

places that are part of what I call our collective memory.

I photograph from a fixed vantage point, and I never move.

I capture the fleeting moments of humanity and light as time passes.

Photographing for anywhere from 15 to 30 hours

I then choose the best moments of the day and night.

I seamlessly blend those best moments into one single photograph,

visualizing our conscious journey with time.

And I can show you the early morning rowers

I can show you Notre Dame aglow at night.

And in between, I can show you the romance of the City of Light.

I am essentially a street photographer from 50 feet in the air,

and every single thing you see in this photograph

and my work has always been about history.

I'm fascinated by the concept of going to a place like Venice

and actually seeing it during a specific event.

And I decided I wanted to see the historical Regata,

an event that's actually been taking place since 1498.

The boats and the costumes look exactly as they did then.

And an important element that I really want you guys to understand is:

this is me photographing throughout the day and the night.

I am a relentless collector of magical moments.

And the thing that drives me is the fear of just missing one of them.

LIFE Magazine commissioned me to create a panoramic photograph

of the cast and crew of Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet.

I got to the set and realized: it's a square.

So the only way I could actually create a panoramic was to shoot a collage

So I had DiCaprio and Claire Danes embracing.

and I saw they were actually reflecting in it.

And then I came back to my studio in New York,

and I hand-glued these 250 images together

and stood back and went, "Wow, this is so cool!

And that concept actually stayed with me for 13 years

until technology finally has caught up to my dreams.

This is an image I created of the Santa Monica Pier, Day to Night.

that gives you an idea of what it's like being with me

To start with, you have to understand that to get views like this,

most of my time is spent up high, and I'm usually in a cherry picker

So this is a typical day, 12-18 hours, non-stop

One of the things that's great is I love to people-watch.

this is the greatest seat in the house to have.

But this is really how I go about creating these photographs.

So once I decide on my view and the location,

I have to decide where day begins and night ends.

except I take that fabric and flatten it, compress it into single plane.

One of the unique aspects of this work is also,

sometimes front to back, up or down, even diagonally.

within a two-dimensional still photograph.

it's literally like a real-time puzzle going on in my mind.

and this is what I call the master plate.

This can take us several months to complete.

I have absolutely zero control when I get up there

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【TED】Stephen Wilkes: The passing of time, caught in a single photo (The passing of time, caught in a single photo | Stephen Wilkes)

literally

absolutely

extraordinary

applause