Trained at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Ray Metzker studied under a line of of inventive and socially engaged photographers. Metzker's interests centered on the built environment and photography’s ability to depict and mirror the perceptual qualities of urban life. He frequently emphasized the interplay of shadow and solid form to created boldly graphic street photography that drew out the fragmentation, pattern, and dissonance inherent to cityscapes. As Metzker’s interest in formal experimentation intensified, he fractured and multiplied his images to make large-scale composite grids with a greater sense of dynamism and fluidity of representation than his single-shot images.