My Family/New York 1951

This photograph, "My Family/New York," was made by Robert Frank using a camera, film, and darkroom. The tonality of the print is very smooth, but it's a trick of the light. There’s something both very intimate and slightly disassociative about this image. The mother's gaze, the angle of the light, the way the cats in the foreground seem more present than the mother and child. Look at the textures, those different planes. There’s the wall, and the sheets, the mother's shirt. It's the texture of the lived-in space that tells the story. There are a few patches on the wall that create this strange, almost abstract element. These tonal blocks are like a language, a kind of counterpoint to the human subject. I'm reminded of other photographers such as Nan Goldin, and the way she captured moments of tenderness and vulnerability in her work. Frank and Goldin both suggest artmaking is a way of bearing witness, to our own stories and to the stories of others.