Wales 38 1953

Robert Frank made this photo, called Wales 38, sometime in the middle of the 20th century. It’s a series of black and white stills, the kind you'd see on a roll of film, contact sheets. It reminds me of the way I work in the studio sometimes, testing out an idea in multiple iterations. I get the sense that Frank was on a journey, both physically and emotionally, when he captured these images. He's trying to get at some essential truth of the place, of the people. You can see it in the way he frames the shots: the stark landscapes, the faces etched with time and labor. The contrast between light and shadow is so rich, so palpable. It feels like he’s using the camera to excavate something hidden, something buried deep within the landscape and the human soul. Photography, like painting, is a way of seeing, of feeling, of making sense of the world around us.