Caerau, Wales 1953

Robert Frank took this photo, Caerau, Wales, with a camera, but how has the artwork come into being? Imagine Frank watching and waiting. What gets me about this picture is the miner holding a cigarette—or is it a match? He’s got this whole burden on him, the lamp on his head, a bag slung over his shoulder. It’s all this gray and white and black. It’s the mid-century—Frank was a contemporary—and this feels like an outsider's perspective. I wonder, what would it have been like to make this, to frame this person? There’s that feeling of intimacy; you get the feeling that Frank isn’t just some tourist. What strikes me is the gray, a melancholic gray. Yet it’s a real gray, not a depressing gray, because it’s got life in it. The miner's face is dirty, so he’s been working. It makes me feel like I want to know more about him and the place he's in. That’s the great thing about pictures, and painters: we’re always in dialogue. They show us the world in ways we haven't seen yet.