Young men--Iowa 1956

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, "Young men--Iowa," on a sheet of paper in his dark room. It's all about light and shadow. Look at how the light catches the side of that young man's face. He’s standing away from the others, looking into the distance. I wonder what Frank was thinking when he snapped the picture? I can imagine him thinking about alienation, the way people find themselves standing alone even when they're surrounded by others. There's a sense of isolation in this image; the tight crop makes it feel close, intimate. Like you're right there with them, but also somehow separate. I think about other photographers like Walker Evans who tried to capture a certain social truth. Frank seems to be in conversation with this tradition, but he's also doing something very different. There’s a certain poetry here, a feeling that stays with you.