The closer we look, the more uncanny this photograph becomes. The crowd is supposedly at a horse race, but the lack of interaction gives what would normally be a boisterous scene a sense of eerie disquiet. Based on the clothing, the image seems historical, but the colors are a little too saturated and the composition a little too balanced for that to ring true.

Crowd #1 took Prager a year and a half to make. She staged every aspect, from the location to the models, their clothing, hair and makeup, and the props and poses. This kind of “directorial” photography, which takes inspiration from movie sets and commercial shoots, was developed by postmodern artists like Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall and pushed toward ever more complex tableaux by a new generation including Gregory Crewdson and Prager. This enigmatic image captures a single moment in what appears to be a longer cinematic arc that we’ll never see.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)