Men pushing cart, Paris 1951

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, Men pushing cart, Paris, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The lack of a precise date feels right, as though this scene is always happening, somewhere. Frank isn't interested in a specific time, but more in a state of being. Look at the way Frank uses light and shadow here, the way the figures emerge from the grey backdrop. The surface has an almost gritty texture, emphasizing the toil and grit of labor. The men are hunched, their coats heavy with dampness, almost like a darker version of the figures in Millet’s ‘The Gleaners’. That blur of movement around their feet, it's less about capturing detail and more about conveying a feeling - the weight of the cart, the slickness of the street. This isn’t just a photograph, it’s a mood, an atmosphere. Think about other artists like Cartier-Bresson or even Helen Levitt, who found poetry in the everyday, and were interested in the world as a stage for human action. Frank seems interested in a similar conversation. The beauty in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary.