From the bus 39 by Robert Frank

From the bus 39

1958

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Artwork details

Medium
photography, gelatin-silver-print
Dimensions
overall: 25.2 x 20.3 cm (9 15/16 x 8 in.)
Copyright
National Gallery of Art: CC0 1.0

Tags

#film photography#street-photography#photography#gelatin-silver-print#modernism#realism

About this artwork

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, From the bus 39, with gelatin silver print. The whole thing kind of looks like a filmstrip, raw and unedited. It’s less about capturing a perfect shot, more about the messy, in-between moments. Frank's work has this beautiful, gritty texture, a realness that just jumps out at you. The blacks are deep, the whites are glaring. Check out the people in the lower right corner, they're almost dissolving into the background, like ghosts in the urban landscape. It reminds me of early Warhol, this embrace of the imperfect, the accidental. I think Frank was onto something big. This is about seeing, about really looking at the world around you, even the parts that are blurry or out of focus. It's like he's saying, "Hey, life isn't always perfect, but it's always interesting."

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