Cotton harvesters--New Mexico 1955

This photograph, Cotton harvesters—New Mexico, was shot by Robert Frank in, well, we don't actually know when. But it's a grainy black and white, and it shows a group of people picking cotton in a field; it’s a tough scene, you can feel it. You know, looking at this, I think about the history of photography, how it’s always been tangled up with social issues, with seeing and showing. What was Frank thinking as he clicked the shutter? Was he trying to show the hardship, the labor? Or was he drawn to the way the figures worked the land, the patterns they made against the earth? Maybe both. I love that these sorts of photographs can be both beautiful and a little bit heart-breaking, all at once. It reminds you that art is never just about one thing. Artists are always talking to each other, across time, responding, reacting, and that photographs like this one reminds us how images can make us feel something real, something human, and something lasting.