To capture the scope of COVID's toll, this photographer spent 30 hours on one photo
Photographer Stephen Wilkes walks us through his process and insights into creating a photo that demonstrates the devastating loss of life from COVID-19, but sends a message of hope as well.
On September 18th and 19th, National Geographic Explorer Stephen Wilkes spent 30 consecutive hours on a lift at 45 feet in the air photographing a public installation on the National Mall, . This installation by Suzanne Firstenberg is comprised of 670,000 white flags, each representing a life lost to COVID-19. Over the weekend, the U.S. breached the threshold of 700,000 lives lost. Wilkes implemented his renown photographing style in order to capture this image. This involved taking 4,882 photos over the course of 30 hours and blending them together for this final product. NPR spoke to Stephen
