Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Tracy Barbutes Photographs Yosemite Protest Rally For The SF Standard
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park
April 10, 2025
Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park
On February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”
"Heading to Yosemite that Saturday, I had been told there might be some form of protest at El Capitan (Tu-tok-ah-nu-lah), the park’s iconic 3,000-foot granite monolith.
There were unconfirmed reports that at least one recently-fired park employee would rappel with an American flag to protest his firing, as well as to protest the thousands of federal jobs lost due to the Trump administration/Elon Musk DOGE cuts.
The event would likely happen near Horsetail Fall, during “firefall” – a natural phenomenon that draws thousands of spectators each February.
I stood under El Cap, something I’ve done hundreds of times, and as I documented the unfurling of that upside down American flag, an act signaling distress, I couldn’t help but think of the paradox of the overall situation as we were gathered on colonized Indigenous land.
There wasn’t an immediate or overwhelming reaction from the crowd, though there was no missing the event. While intent on capturing a series of images, I was mindful that I was documenting a bold, courageous, historic act.
It wasn’t until later that night and the next morning as the image went viral that I began to understand what those actions, and the image, meant. Did Nate Vance, the fired park employee behind the flag protest, and his cohorts, shake people out of a collective stupor and spark a movement of resistance." -- Tracy Barbutes
Barbutes is a photojournalist, writer, and wildfire photographer based near Yosemite.
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Stephen Wilkes' Photograph on the Cover of National Geographic "America The Beautiful" Issue
A national monument rich with archaeological sites, it includes the Citadel, once a fortified cliff dwelling, now a popular hiking spot. I took 2,092 photographs over 36 hours and selected 44 for this image. Beyond the sense of awe and beauty, there's a palpable sense of history with every step you take.
Bears Ears was one of the most challenging Day to Nights I have created. After a long day of traveling my team and I hiked out over an hour with several hundred pounds of gear to our shoot location and set up camp for the next three days. Over the duration of our shoot we photographed while battling steady 45 mph winds, and were blessed to be able to capture the sunrise, a full moon and a rare alignment of the planets, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn." --Stephen Wilkes
Monday, December 12, 2016
Stephen Wilkes' "Yosemite, Day to Night" Among National Geographic's "Best Photos of 2016"
National Geographic recently announced their "Best Photos of 2016". In a gallery of National Geographic's 52 best images of the year—curated from 91 photographers, 107 stories, and 2,290,225 photographs. Stephen Wilkes' photograph of Yosemite, Day To Night, was included as selection #29:
This photo was originally published in "How National Parks Tell Our Story—and Show Who We Are," in January 2016.
View Stephen Wilkes' full Day To Night Collection here.
Related: See our full compilation of 2016 lists of the "Best" of all things photography here.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
National Geographic PROOF Features Stephen Wilkes Day To Night Series
Via National Geographic PROOF Picture Stories
January 5, 2016
Piecing Together Time in the ‘Ultimate Brain Puzzle’
"A single image in Stephen Wilkes’s “Day to Night” series is composed of an average of 1,500 frames captured by manual shutter clicks over a period of anywhere from 16 to 30 hours. During this process, Wilkes must keep his horizon line straight and maintain continuity, which means keeping his camera perfectly still.
He then spends weeks in postproduction, piecing the best frames together into a final composite of layered images, essentially compressing time. For Wilkes, the excitement is in showing people something more than a photograph, something that provides a multidimensional experience, a window, as he describes it, into a world where the full spectrum of time, light, and experience plays across the frame. We’re treated to a view we’ve never seen before—one our eyes could never take in on their own." Full post here.
Monroe Gallery will be exhibiting Stephen Wilkes’ "Day To Night" photographs featured in the January, 2016 issue of National Geographic during photo l.a. 2016, as well as selections from Wilkes' recent Remnants collection.
Related: Nationally recognized photographer Stephen Wilkes has turned his lens to our national parks, commemorating their 100th anniversary
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Nationally recognized photographer Stephen Wilkes has turned his lens to our national parks, commemorating their 100th anniversary
‘Herculean’ process produces ‘Day to Night’ images of national parks
Via The Albuquerqe Journal
By Kathaleen Roberts / Journal Staff Writer
Sunday, December 20th, 2015
Invisible layers of time move Old Faithful from sunrise to sunset, ringed by a walkway of people rendered microscopic by its grandeur.
Nationally recognized photographer Stephen Wilkes has turned his lens to our national parks, commemorating their 100th anniversary in four-page gateway covers in both the January 2016 national and international issues of National Geographic. Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography is showcasing the works beginning Saturday through Jan. 10, 2016.
Wilkes focused his discerning eye on Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, as well as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and Tanzania’s Serengeti.
What may appear to be time-lapse photography at first glance actually isn’t, Wilkes maintained.
(Slide Show Link)
WHEN: Opening 5-7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 26; 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; Runs through Jan. 10
WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe
HOW MUCH: Free. Call 505-992-0800 or visit monroegallery.com
“I photograph from a single perspective, usually elevated, anywhere from 12 to 30 hours without moving my camera,” Wilkes said in a telephone interview from his Connecticut home.
“It’s quite Herculean. I’m actually studying a place for 30 hours.”
Launched in 2009, the parks project is an offshoot of a similar body of work on cities. He edits and blends the images into seamless works of art in post-production, a process that takes about a month.
“I look for very iconic places where everybody goes, ‘I’ve been there,'” he explained. “These places are part of our collective memory. When I do that, some kind of magic happens. Time becomes compressed.”
At Yellowstone, he photographed Old Faithful from the old crow’s nest atop the inn of the same name, capturing both the sun and the moon peaking above the foothills.
“It’s the most active place on the planet geologically,” Wilkes said. “It goes off every 90 minutes. When you look at that picture, you realize the enormity of just how big it is.”
Long a fan of the Hudson River School painter Albert Bierstadt, famous for his highly romanticized views of the West, Wilkes thought he could never capture the artist’s sweeping aesthetic.
“He painted it from the opposite view,” Wilkes said. “It was if I was channeling him at that moment. Yosemite is as close to being a religious experience as a landscape. When you look at the people in that photograph you realize how insignificant we are as a species.”
In Washington, he spent his preparation time following the cherry blossom handlers checking the petals for signs of peak bloom. Wilkes photographed them between the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial using an 80-foot crane.
The Serengeti offered a breakthrough, both aesthetically and philosophically. Wilkes arrived during the peak migration of the wildlife, but the animals had stopped due to a five-week drought. He began studying a watering hole and waited in hope. He had no idea if any creatures would appear.
“We started at 2 a.m. with an 18-foot platform with a crocodile blind,” he said. “We essentially became invisible.”
He witnessed something miraculous. The creatures arrived slowly, carefully taking turns without fighting over the precious resource.
“All these competitive species shared water,” Wilkes said. “It sort of speaks to you. They say the single resource we’ll go to war over is water. We have to hear what the animals know already.”
Wilkes came to New Mexico last fall to check out the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. He plans to return and shoot the most photographed event in the world next year.
-- Stephen Wilkes Day To Night photographs will be exhibited by Monroe Gallery at the photola fair, January 21 - 24, 2016.
See the National Geographic article on-line here.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
STEPHEN WILKES DAY TO NIGHT FEATURE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, will host a Holiday reception celebrating the special feature of Stephen Wilkes’ "Day To Night" photographs in the January, 2016 issues of National Geographic. The public reception will be on Saturday, December 26, from 5 - 7 PM. A special selection of Wilkes’ Day To Night photographs will be on exhibit through January 10, 2016.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Stephen Wilkes in National Geographic: Laos to National Parks
Stephen Wilkes' photographs in National Geographic: Laos Finds New Life After the Bombs
Slideshow
The January 2016 issue of National Geographic will feature Stephen Wilkes' photographs as part of a special tribute to the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service.
Stephen Wilkes: "Remnants" continues through November 22 at Monroe Gallery of Photography.