Imagine capturing an entire day – or even two – in a single photograph. That’s exactly what award-winning photographer Stephen Wilkes does, and his stunning “Day to Night” images are not just beautiful; they tell powerful stories about our changing world. Two of his extraordinary works have been recognized in this year’s National Geographic Pictures of the Year, celebrating the most impactful photographs featured in the magazine.
Wilkes’ featured photos juxtapose contrasting realities. One captures a thriving Steller sea lion colony in British Columbia, Canada, a testament to successful conservation efforts. The other depicts a parched watering hole in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where wildlife struggles to survive after a devastating five-month drought. It’s a stark reminder of the delicate balance of nature and the consequences of climate change.
But here’s where it gets controversial… Wilkes’ work isn’t just about pointing a camera and snapping a picture. It’s a meticulous process that involves spending countless hours – sometimes days – in the field, capturing thousands of images. And this is the part most people miss… the magic happens in post-processing, where Wilkes and his team painstakingly weave together these individual moments into a single, seamless narrative. For the first time, as part of Pictures of the Year 2025, Wilkes is offering a glimpse into his unique process.
“It’s always driven by narrative,” Wilkes explains. He emphasizes the importance of capturing specific moments that tell a story, those instances where he just knows a particular shot has to be included. It’s about curating a visual experience that conveys the essence of the scene.
Creating these images demands incredible dedication. For the sea lion photograph, Wilkes spent nearly 50 hours in a blind on a rock, enduring minimal sleep. In Botswana, he braved scorching 105°F heat for 18 hours, perched atop a jack-mounted pickup truck nearly 20 feet in the air. This commitment, he argues, is essential for truly experiencing the environment and understanding the animals’ behavior.
A Stellar Photo of Steller Sea Lions
“It’s an amazing thing to witness over the course of time,” Wilkes says of the Steller sea lions. His image reveals the intricate social dynamics of the colony, where males constantly compete for dominance. “The males are the dominant species, and when they’re breeding, the whole idea is whoever is at the highest point physically on that rock becomes the dominant male. It’s like a game of king of the hill.”
Throughout the two days, Wilkes watched these epic battles unfold, with males vying for the highest position, only to be toppled time and again. The victorious males proudly stand tall, each reigning over their own rocky territory. Meanwhile, the females diligently hunt and gather food for their young, who frolic on the rocks and in the water.
And this is where the technical mastery comes in. As Wilkes captured these interactions, the tide was rising dramatically, changing the landscape by several feet per hour. The challenge was to create a unified image with a consistent sea level, despite the varying tides at which the individual shots were taken. The final image depicts the sea level near its low tide position, a testament to Wilkes’ meticulous post-processing skills.
“One of the things that was really exciting for me was how do I manage capturing this, not only the transition of time and light and behavior, but also how do I show the dramatic changes this island takes over the course of 24 hours?”
Wilkes points out the vibrant green moss on the rocks, which becomes visible at low tide and transforms the sea lions’ behavior. “It was so rich and green and alive. It was spectacular. It was almost like a play land for the children,” he recalls. In the final image, a group of pups chases each other through this mossy playground, a moment of pure joy and celebration.
“This is one of my favorite moments,” Wilkes says. “There’s this joyful celebratory aspect to these animals. When you study them for the course of 48 hours like I did, you begin to really see the individual personalities of these Steller sea lions.”
To minimize disturbance, Wilkes and his team carefully positioned their blind behind a rock wall, shielding it from the prevailing wind. This prevented the sea lions from detecting their scent, a crucial factor given their reliance on olfactory senses. Wilkes believes he’s the first person allowed on these islands since the Canadian government implemented protections for the Steller sea lion habitat, underscoring the importance of minimizing environmental impact.
Wilkes emphasizes that his work is not timelapse photography. He focuses on capturing individual moments, reacting to the scene as it unfolds. “Every moment that you see is something that I’m actually focusing on at a given moment in time. My eye basically moves from left to right as time changes,” he explains.
He compares his approach to his work as a documentary and sports photographer. While the Day to Night project is his most recognized, he has been a professional photographer since 1983, gaining recognition for his fine art, editorial, and commercial work.
Wilkes describes focusing on a single scene for extended periods as a meditative experience. “[It’s] a physical visual meditation of me staring at a place over the course of 24 to 48 hours [and] gives my work a certain depth,” Wilkes says. “And also you can see the moments I’m capturing are, in a way, they’re kind of magical… I think what I try to do is I’m trying to communicate the visual language that these animals and these wildlife were sharing with me. I’m becoming a part of that language in a way, and that’s what I’m trying to share. It’s been a really enlightening experience being able to do these pictures.”
Wilkes believes his success stems from the energy he projects into the environment. “What I project into the scene, that’s something a lot of people don’t really understand or talk about enough, the way you are and what you put out in terms of your energy,” Wilkes says. “If you create fear – you hear stories about this all time, animals have a certain instinct to smell fear and having that kind of energy, when you project that, the animals sense that.”
By maintaining a positive and respectful attitude, he believes the animals feel more comfortable, allowing him to capture more intimate moments.
“It’s a great gift to be able to witness” the animals going about their lives, he remarks. The challenge, and privilege, of spending so much time immersed in a single scene is not lost on him.
“It’s an unbelievably powerful way to reconnect to the world and be present. I think that’s one of the great joys of being able to migrate [Day to Night] to shooting wildlife. I feel like, in a way, it’s given my work a deeper purpose,” Wilkes says. “I think once you create art with purpose, it’s very hard to create art that doesn’t have purpose. This is what I love to do.”
A Very Different Energy in Botswana
In stark contrast to the thriving sea lion colony, Wilkes’ Botswana photograph captures a scene of desperation. Photographing a different watering hole in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, Wilkes witnessed harmony. “They feed together, they stay together,” Wilkes says of much of the African wildlife, particularly the ones that are often prey for apex predators. “They stay together because the likelihood you’ll both be attacked by a predator goes down substantially.”
“But here I was photographing for 18 hours,” Wilkes says of Botswana. “And it was not a five-week drought like it was during the Serengeti photograph it was now a five-month drought. What I witnessed here was that the animals have changed their behavior. They’re not sharing water anymore, it’s totally abut survival of the fittest. The scarcity I witnessed firsthand, a sort of uncontrollable chaos over the course of the 18 hours I photographed and watched was different.”
The photograph reveals the increased animosity and tension at the watering hole. A wildebeest is terrorized by an elephant, while a hippo stares down another elephant, warning it to stay away. “That was a moment I’ll never forget. I could feel this hippo look at a young elephant and say, ‘Don’t even think about drinking my water.’ You could feel his energy,” Wilkes says. “I realized that the water had changed the entire vibe, the dynamic. The chaos I was watching was all about water.”
These animals need water to survive, and their food sources depend on it. In this scene, nature’s balance has been disrupted, leading to desperate measures.
Early in his day in Botswana, a young elephant noticed Wilkes and the truck. “He’s staring me down,” Wilkes says. “These animals are so smart, they have so much energy. The way they project, when they look at you and lock eyes, you know you’re in the presence of a high intelligence.”
For 45 minutes, the elephant postured aggressively, convincing Wilkes’ guide that it was about to charge. “My assistant and I were basically hyperventilating. We’re so scared, but we’re trying to show love and calmness and everything,” Wilkes recalls. The truck, partially jacked up, couldn’t escape. The young elephant, though not fully grown, could easily topple the entire structure.
Fortunately, an older female elephant intervened, trumpeting loudly and ramming the younger one. After that, no other elephants paid Wilkes any attention. “This male just walked away, and nobody came near me the rest of the day,” Wilkes says. “It felt like somebody was looking down on me because the thought of being charged when you’re up in a truck 15 feet in the air is not a very reassuring feeling.”
Despite the harrowing experience, Wilkes emphasizes that “it was all worth the effort to make this picture.” He acknowledges the role of luck in capturing such a powerful image.
The animals in the photograph, representing ten different species, were struggling to survive a devastating drought.
“This picture is canary in the coal mine,” he says, highlighting the far-reaching impacts of climate change and inadequate resource management. While the recovering sea lion population offers a glimmer of hope, the drought in Botswana serves as a warning about the consequences of ecological imbalance.
Wilkes believes he has a responsibility to share these stories with a wider audience. Photography, he says, is a potent tool for driving change, and his images are an especially compelling form of visual storytelling. They convey the passage of time, condensing countless moments and interactions into a single frame.
“That’s how you begin to move the needle, through inspiring. Sometimes it’s one person at a time, but you just got to keep doing it,” Wilkes says.
“There’s this power of the individual that we can all make a difference by just doing something,” Wilkes continues, citing Jane Goodall. “And once you learn how to do one thing, you realize it wasn’t that hard. And you can do something else. Suddenly, it grows. That’s how we forge change. And I think that’s what must happen here, we have to collectively recognize what’s happening globally with our climate and figure out how to protect species.”
As a grandfather, Wilkes hopes to share these environments with future generations, but desperately hopes that they are healthier than they are today. “I don’t want the only history of wildlife they see to be these photographs,” Wilkes concludes.
What do you think? Does art have the power to change the world? Are these images a call to action? Share your thoughts in the comments below!