Workers leaving Esso plant--Baton Rouge, Louisiana 1955

Robert Frank took this black and white photograph called 'Workers leaving Esso plant--Baton Rouge, Louisiana' sometime in the mid-twentieth century. I can imagine him on the street, framing and composing, trying to get the shot while the workers stream past, exhausted, anonymous. The light is flat, and the tone is somber, but there is also a kind of visual rhythm created by the workers and their hard hats. The man in the foreground with a cigarette hanging from his lips, feels like the key to the whole image. He's got this look of someone who's seen a lot, a weariness that goes beyond just a day's work. It reminds me how art can capture a moment and let it live on, revealing these small human dramas that might otherwise go unnoticed.