Wales 6 1953

Here's this gelatin silver print of processed film from Wales by Robert Frank. I can imagine Frank in the darkroom, wrestling with these images. He’s reaching for something real, isn't he? It looks like he's in the middle of a thought, piecing things together. The red marker feels like a painterly addition, a way to emphasize or cancel out certain frames. I feel like he's working his way through the world, editing as he goes. This isn't about a perfect image. It's about the messy, imperfect process of trying to capture something true. We see a bunch of different frames here that seem to represent a stream of consciousness. Like notes, these details form a record of a moment in time. There’s a strange comfort in seeing that. The act of making art is an invitation, and it’s nice to be reminded that even the best artists are just trying to figure things out, just like us.