Monroe Gallery of Photography

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to present "Day To Night", an exhibition of large-scale color photographs (up to 50 x 80 inches) by leading contemporary photographer Stephen Wilkes. The exhibition opens with a public reception with Stephen Wilkes from 5 - 7 PM on Friday, April 27; and continues through June 16.

Wilkes' most recent series features vibrant photographs of Times Square, Park Avenue, Coney Island, and Central Park, among other iconic New York locations, and capture, in a single frame, the transition from "Day to Night". Using digital composites of images of the same site taken over a period of up to 15 hours, the photographs have a time-traveling quality, with the hustle and bustle in the afternoon sun giving way to the glow of city lights in darkening, cloud-streaked skies.

"Anything one can imagine one can create. Over the last several years, photographic technology has evolved to a point where anything is possible. I imagined changing time in a single photograph. I began to explore this fascination with time in a new series of photographs called: "Day to Night". Photographing from one camera angle continuously for up to 15 hours, capturing the fleeting moments throughout the day and night. A select group of these images are then digitally blended into one photograph, capturing the changing of time within a single frame.

Day to Night embodies a combination of my favorite things to photograph; documentary street photography melded with epic cityscapes. The work is a personal reflection of my deep love for New York. As this series has evolved, I discovered that the photographs began to highlight a form of emergent behavior within the daily life of the city. Studying the communication between pedestrians on sidewalks, cars and cabs on the street, these individual elements become a complex life form as they flow together to create the chaotic harmony that is Manhattan.

Henri Cartier Bresson once said, "Photography is the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things." I am forever fascinated by the rhythm that is New York, the city's relentless energy from "Day to Night"'.--Stephen Wilkes