Crowd before waterfront 1945

Robert Frank created this gelatin silver print, Crowd before waterfront, with a small camera, probably on the fly. It’s all about capturing a moment, right? What strikes me is the texture, or lack of it. It's grainy, but smooth, not too contrast-y. It feels like looking through a misted window. I’m drawn to that one guy’s hat, right in the middle. It’s like a little island of clarity in a sea of blurred faces. The shape is echoed by the bare trees behind, and the hazy sailboats on the water. This piece reminds me a little of some of the early impressionists, like Pissarro, they used similar techniques to capture fleeting moments in urban life. Frank’s photography, like impressionist painting, embraces ambiguity, inviting us to find our own stories within the frame.