Shining shoes, reflection in cigarette machine mirror--New Mexico 1955

Robert Frank took this photograph, "Shining shoes, reflection in cigarette machine mirror--New Mexico," capturing a scene that's all about layers. The way Frank uses light and shadow reminds me of early Manet, or even Goya. I’m drawn to how the mirror doesn’t just reflect but transforms. The cigarette machine becomes a frame, and the reflection feels almost like a painting within a painting. Look at how the figures in the reflection are soft, ghostlike, while the objects in the foreground have a sharper, almost documentary feel. That play between clarity and blur, reality and reflection, makes you wonder what’s truly there, and what’s just a trick of the light. It makes you question the act of seeing. Like a painter layering brushstrokes, Frank layers realities, inviting us to see the world not as a fixed place, but as an unfolding, ever-changing process. Isn't that what art is all about?