City of London 7 1952 - 1953

This is Robert Frank's "City of London 7," and it's not just a photo, it's a peek behind the curtain of how photos are made. What strikes me first is the raw, almost accidental quality. You see the whole strip of film, complete with sprockets, frame numbers, and even handwritten marks. It's like Frank is saying, "Here's the messy truth, the process." The greyscale is so rich and varied, with deep blacks and shimmering silvers. It’s like he's using light itself as a physical material. Look at the sequence of images across the strips. There's a street scene, a person walking, glimpses of parks. Each frame tells a fragment of a story, but it's the gaps between them that really get you thinking. It's a reminder that art doesn't have to be perfect or polished, that sometimes the most interesting things happen in the in-between spaces. Think of other photographers of the time, like Helen Levitt, capturing similar slices of urban life with such sensitivity.