Peru, page 39 1948

Robert Frank’s photograph “Peru, page 39” shows us a group of indigenous people in the stark light of an anonymous street. The blacks are sooty and the whites are dusty – it's a grey world! Frank had a gift for capturing the mundane and turning it into something deeply evocative. The texture of this photo is everything – you can almost feel the grit of the street, the weariness in the eyes of the woman at the center. Note how the light catches on the edges of things, giving everything a kind of rough halo, and how the composition is off-kilter, as if it were shot on the fly. There's a beautiful tension between spontaneity and intention, rawness and refinement. I am reminded of Walker Evans, whose work shares a similar interest in the poetry of the everyday. But Frank, like all great artists, has his own voice – a voice that speaks of longing, displacement, and the search for meaning in a world that often feels chaotic and indifferent.