Nixon campaign 13 1960

Robert Frank’s ‘Nixon campaign 13’ captures a series of black and white photographs on film. It's like a storyboard, each frame a little moment, a potential narrative. The greyscale gives it a timeless feel, but also a starkness, a sense of documentary. It’s about capturing a moment. Each individual frame feels like a sketch. Look at the central strip, the third frame from the left, of a handshake. The tonal range is so subtle, but the moment is full of such weight. The whole contact sheet, with its sprocket holes and annotations, becomes the art, not just the individual images. Frank, like Walker Evans, knew how to see the poetry in the everyday. Maybe that's what all artists are trying to do, see the world in a new way and then share it. This piece is like an ongoing conversation about how we see, what we value, and how we remember.