Ray Metzker

Ray Metzker often explored “doubling” in his work, either by exposing a negative twice before development or by printing two different negatives on a single sheet of photographic paper. His Couplets series allowed him to play around with juxtaposition and, by extension, imply a narrative. Here, Metzker’s own shadow looms over an unsuspecting beachgoer resting in a lounge chair. The seemingly innocent trails in the sand below take on a disquieting air if we imagine the chair dragged out of the frame.

–Matthew Kluk (Brown PhD 2025, History of Art and Architecture), RISD proctor 2021–2022

Ray Metzker studied at the Institute of Design in Chicago from 1956 to 1959, a time when the program encouraged photography students to explore unconventional modes of cropping, framing, and printing. This is one of a series of images Metzger made near the boardwalk in Atlantic City between 1968 and 1977, which he originally printed as provocative couplets. Captivated by the abstract gestures of entangled shadows and unselfconscious postures on the beach, the pairing implies a narrative, but one that is unresolved. Metzker refers to the scenes as “delicate moments-unadorned and unglamorous, yet tender and exquisite.”