New York–based photographer Spencer Ostrander (born 1984) presents a series of photographs from one of his early visits to Times Square, in which he was caught off guard by a sudden rainfall. The people in the crowd, draped in plastic, are transformed into abstract, brilliant reflections of the massive advertising that surrounded them. Designed to entrap the consumer with illusions of status, the good life and happiness by product, the vast LED light boards turned visitors into walking ads for MTV, Coca-Cola and The Lion King. When the flickering LEDs hit his camera’s sensor, they created unseen lines and streaks of color, a technical mirage that perfectly suits Ostrander’s subject—the empty allure of late capitalism. Moving among the people with his camera, Ostrander began to see sorrow, tenderness, despair—a hidden story that reveals itself through his photographs.
