Glider, Zurich 1942 - 1945

This photograph, Glider, Zurich, was captured by Robert Frank sometime in the mid-twentieth century. Frank was a master of mood and the image is heavy with atmosphere, but also with the literal materiality of the photographic process. The print is small, almost intimate in scale. The surface is grainy, imperfections are visible - look at the scratch bisecting the scene – which gives it a tactile quality, like a well-worn object. The figures on the hillside are silhouetted against the sky, anonymous, yet the composition teases a narrative. Frank's work often presents a counterpoint to the slick, commercial photography of his time. There’s a rawness here, an honesty. It reminds me a little of Walker Evans, another photographer who found beauty in the everyday and the overlooked. This piece is less about technical perfection and more about capturing a moment, a feeling, a mood. It's this that makes it so compelling.