Metzker began to photograph landscapes in 1985, on a trip to Italy, and the exhibition opens with prints from that time. The distinctive quality of his landscape vision is established immediately and remains consistent for a number of years. That vision involves taking nature exactly as he finds it and translating what he sees directly into prints, without manipulation. The resulting images can appear casual or offhand, as if Metzger had snapped his shutter at random or while tripping over a tree root. The show's earlier prints, all in a square format, contain a lot of foreground foliage that is usually blurry or washed-out.
Some images are mainly scrims of foliage that block one's view into the background.
But anyone who has walked in woods recognizes the truth of this view. This is the way nature presents itself at ground level - somewhat chaotic and confusing at first, because we don't see panoramically and in perfect register. The defining quality of Metzker's images, one that remains more or less constant over time, is his handling of light. Most of his prints, especially the earlier ones, are suffused with a silvery tonality that imparts a metallic sheen to foliage. Skies are bleached white and featureless, as they often are in 19th-century time exposures.