Stephen Wilkes' Day To Night Series Featured in Today's Newspapers

These are the incredible images which show the world's most iconic cityscapes by day and night — in just one picture.

The mesmerising images show the beautiful transition from day to night in some of the world's most iconic cities from the Shanghai skyline to New York's Central Park.

The unusual images were taken by photographer Stephen Wilkes who spent up to 15 hours and shot up to 1500 photos to create just one composite image.

  The collection entitled Day to Night features 15 images including works from Times Square, The Western Wall and The Capitol.

To create the images, Stephen, 55, from Connecticut, U.S.A., shoots across the entire landscape from sunrise to sunset — sometimes from locations that do not even have toilet facilities.

He then returns to his studio to blend around 50 of the best photographs to create one seamless image. Each piece takes around one month to edit.
  Stephen said he first came up with the idea of shooting multiple images across a landscape when taking the cast picture for Baz Lurman's blockbuster Romeo and Juliet for Life Magazine, in 1996.
But it wasn't until he was asked to shoot the High Line for New York Magazine that Stephen used this technique to show the passing of time.

Stephen said while he is fascinated by architecture, people and the cities of the world, what he really loves to shoot is history. And he has even shot Day and Night images of President Obama's inauguration speech as well as New Year's Eve in Times Square.

 
There are currently 15 images in the collection but he is currently working on images from Chicago, and hope to add works from London and Paris in the near future.

Stephen wants to add as many images as possible to his collection.

He said: "I remember saying that New York was very active and busy at lunchtime and very spooky at night.

  "I like to say it's a labour of love for you to stay 15 hours and shoot 1500 images where most of the time there is no bathroom.

"I am a street photographer by training and Day to Night is essentially all the things I love about photography; my son describes it as my symphony.

"The images are so layered; there are so many elements that I love about the medium: Street, history, people environment, narrative, and storytelling.

  "I'm drawn to cities that have not only fantastic architecture, but also fascinating street life.
"The human narrative is the subtext is in a lot of my photographs, so more you look at it, the more you are going to discover.

"There is a layered effect so you will discover something new whenever you view it."