Double Frame: Atlantic City, 1968
Vintage gelatin silver print,
Image size 9 x 6"
Signed, editioned 4/20, and dated 1968 on verso
Exhibition print from the 1984 retrospective:
Unknown Territory, Photographs by Ray K. Metzker 1957-1983
June 6, 2022
Nobody ever saw Atlantic City like Ray Metzker. In the 1960’s and 70’s, Metzker returned to the resort city regularly, photographing its beaches, boardwalks, and local architecture in ways that radically reinvented them. This image was arrived at through an elegant process of Metzker’s own devising, specifically his “Double Frame” series, which combined images shot on neighboring frames of 35 mm film into a single print. The break between exposures is obscured by Metzker’s signature approach to inky shadows, so the impossible scene appears to flow together continuously. It speaks to Metzker’s great skill, that this invented image was composed entirely in-camera.
