Feeling Wilkes

Stephen Wilkes is all about feelings.

He said that Ellis Island instantly made him "feel" something special once he stepped his feet on. "Photographers need to feel the souls," he said during the lecture, "To feel things, human energy, people. The best photos are the ones that have that power so that the voices come through the work."

Stephen Wilkes is all about lights, color, and...passion.

He hold a passion for people, for distinguish angles, for colors, for natural lights. Through his work in China, and on Ellis Island, the stories were being told through the images. "As photographer," he said, "The act of discovery is sometimes the light on the table."

Stephen Wilkes is all about seeing life through vantage points.

"Where you are in life is so special," he said. "sometimes hunt clouds the mind." Go out and shoot, and wait for a little bit. Things will reveal themselves to you.

A packed Rm 101 in Newhouse may say something about Wilkes, but his images told his stories, revealing who he is as a photographer and as a person.

Stephen Wilkes

A1 was absolutely packed by the time I got there, so I found a free six inches of space on the floor with the intention of leaving after twenty or thirty minutes. Instead, I spent a full hour and a half straining to see the pictures on the screen and awkwardly rubbing against the total strangers squashed into the space beside me.

If that doesn't speak volumes about the power of Wilkes' work, I don't know what does.

Wilkes really IS all he was cracked up to be. I was particularly moved by his photographs from Ellis Island. The colors were absolutely unbelievable - the longer exposure added so much depth and brillance. Some of them were actually rather surreal in that sense; the color was so bright and pure as to be otherworldly.

Wilkes did occasionally wax ridiculous with his talk of "strange feelings" and ghosts, but there was a very strong, distinctly human mood in his architectural photos - I had to give him that. He has an incredible ability to capture feeling. The Ellis Island photos were particularly powerful, I think, because that feeling was so overwhelmingly tragic.

The China photos were, I thought, more unsettling than anything. Wilkes' portrayed China - both visually and verbally - as a speeding monolith on the verge of global domination. His factory photographs showed uniformed, uniform workers at state-of-the-art machines. He frequently spoke of China in terms of the "collective." It was certainly fascinating, but I didn't feel the same communion with the China photos as I did with the Ellis Island ones. Obviously they were all incredible, but the first set was my personal favorite.

I hope he has a show at Syracuse some time... I'd definitely recommend seeing it.

Stephen Wilkes

So, I thought that the Stephen Wilkes presentation was pretty amazing. His photography was outstanding and his stories that corresponded to each shot were really interesting. When he was speaking about his Ellis Island adventure, I found it interesting that he only shot when he was "welcomed" in the rooms. I can't imagine what kind of experience that must have been ... feeling the presence of the past inhabitants. I also think that it is really awesome that he has travelled all around the world and been fortunate enough to learn about different cultures. His China photos are particularly special because they show the countries change/improvements over the years. I never thought about how "fast" the country was growing and how much more advanced they are than the United States. Stephen Wilkes (both him and his photography) definitely made me consider the differences between the east and the west and also the possible results of those differences. From all of his photos, my favorite would have to be the sunset over the Pacific Ocean (the one where the sun was a bright yellowish-red) or the Ellis Island photo of the sink, mirror, and reflection of the Statue of Liberty. But...they were all amazing- each possessing different qualities.