“The idea of looking and seeing nowadays is becoming an endangered human experience, but I find when I do this work that it is the antithesis. It's constant connectivity that we are all drawn into now, this addiction that we all have to our iPhone and social media. But what I find when I do these pictures is that I get to just look. And in a way, when you have that depth of time to look at something, just study a single place the way I do, it just affects you on a deep level. You begin to see narratives in everything.”
Stephen Wilkes received his BS in photography from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a minor in business management from the Whitman School of Management in 1980.
Wilkes’ awards and honors include the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, Photographer of the Year from Adweek Magazine, Fine Art Photographer of the Year 2004 Lucie Award, TIME Magazine Top 10 Photographs of 2012, Sony World Photography Professional Award 2012, Adobe Breakthrough Photography Award 2012, and Prix Pictet, Consumption 2014.
Collections:
George Eastman Museum
James A. Michener Art Museum
Houston Museum of Fine Arts
Dow Jones Collection
Griffin Museum of Photography
Jewish Museum of NY
Library of Congress
Snite Museum of Art
The Historic New Orleans Collection
Museum of the City of New York
9/11 Memorial Museum