On one of Spencer Ostrander’s early visits to Times Square, the rain began to fall. The people in the crowd, suddenly draped in plastic, were 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. And when the flickering LEDs hit his camera’s sensor, they created streaks of color and lines that don’t exist, but are part of the photos, 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 starts to reveal itself in his photographs.

SPENCER OSTRANDER (*1984, Seattle) has lived in New York City for the past two decades. He has done extensive work in all forms of photography and has recently completed two other book projects: Bloodbath Nation, with a long text on American gun violence by Paul Auster and Long Live King Kobe.