Peru 39 1948

Robert Frank made this black and white photograph, Peru 39, at an unknown date. It's a photo of contact sheets, which shows different strips of images. I imagine Frank as a wandering soul, right? He goes to Peru, snaps away, and then later, back in the darkroom, he’s looking at these strips of film, editing, selecting, sequencing. The contact sheets themselves become this whole other composition, a kind of meta-artwork about seeing and framing. Look at those palm trees, the way they line up like a procession, or the blurry street scenes—there’s a sense of movement, of things fleetingly caught. I bet he was thinking about what to include and exclude to convey the mood of Peru. He shoots and then shoots again. He moves to a different space and shoots. It’s cool how Frank’s process becomes visible; the contact sheet lets us peek behind the curtain, and consider all the decisions, happy accidents, and the pure chance that goes into photography.