About Tim Wilkes

In the more than twenty years that he's been shooting, Tim Wilkes has made his bones primarily in architectural and sailing photography. But his people, travel and advertising work take a back seat to nobody. Throughout all of it there's an element of storytelling that's unique. He says, "Over time I've built a reputation for finding creative ways of showing projects through artistic composition and comprehensive sequences of imagery."

But don't let his artistic bent fool you. Tim is very much a businessman. "This is a craft," he says. "It involves art but it's also a business. So the clients have to be happy. I make sure that they get what they want." Often they get more than that since his work regularly persuades judging panels to select Wilkes' clients as winners in American Institute of Architecture design competitions. In fact, in his home base of Rochester, New York, most of the AIA awards over the last ten years were given to projects that he photographed.

As to the siren call of sailing, Tim's experience with it started early. "When I was a kid I took a brief series of Sunfish lessons on a small lake in the middle of Long Island, New York. Much later a friend asked me to race on a J/24. Just as I took to music and soccer, this became my passion and the desire to photograph the sport came along with it." Today he has photographed the world's most prestigious regattas and is the official photographer of Key West Race Week, SORC and Block Island Race Week.

When pressed about the schizophrenic nature of his calling, he just laughs. "Boats are all about design, aerodynamics and beauty. Architectural shooting is too. I thrive on the yin and yang of it. If you like sweet it's good to have sour every so often so that your palette doesn't become dull. But it's all a process of discovery. No matter how many times you cover a sailing event, something unexpected always happens, same thing with architecture. Change keeps it interesting. All I ask is that the experience stays new. When it isn't anymore, I'll hang up my camera."

Tim Wilkes is published in magazines in more than twenty countries worldwide. He lives in Rochester, New York.