More Grating
©2013 Craig Ashby
Digital Photograph

More Grating is a request for more layers. More fencing. More examples of grating cages within cages to infinity.

I remember the interior illustrations for an R.E.M. album that showed a New York door stoop. Rather than be repaired it had been covered with metal.

Now I know this happens everywhere, but in New York it is an epidemic. There are so many layers of fencing in this image it shocked me. Pulled me out of my city induced stupor and made me take the shot.

The lighting is harsh and gloomy at once. In service of protection we end up imprisoned. It’s horror and beauty glaring.

It’s not always this intense. The city. But when it is it can show you a lot. The poverty alone in this shot is phenomenally intense.

The sad thing is I don’t think the guy who was there after the shot thought anything of it. He was so much a part of this life that he never question that there was too much shit going on in the tiny entrance. Too many shapes, too much off lighting, too much tetanus.

I think these pictures aren’t just pictures, they are metaphors.