Guggenheim 168--Miami, Florida 1955

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, "Guggenheim 168--Miami, Florida," sometime during his career. What’s cool about this piece is how Frank isn't precious with his images; he's showing us the raw, unedited strips of film, complete with sprocket holes and all the little imperfections. The grainy texture, the high contrast, it's all part of Frank's signature style. Look at the sequence of images, how they jump from scene to scene. There's one strip where you can make out an image of shoppers inside, then he flips to people outside. It's like he's inviting us to see the world through his eyes, a world that’s fragmented and fleeting. Frank was a huge influence on a whole generation of photographers, kinda like what the Velvet Underground was for music. He showed us that art could be rough, honest, and deeply personal.