Fourth of July--Coney Island 2 4 - 1958

This is Robert Frank's photo, 'Fourth of July--Coney Island 2', we don't know exactly when he made it, but it's a gelatin silver print. I love the way the whole thing reads like a strip of celluloid, or a discarded contact sheet. It's like Frank is saying: here's all the evidence. I can just imagine Frank at Coney Island with his camera, watching, waiting, shooting the breeze with the holidaymakers. What was he thinking as he captured these moments? You can almost hear the cacophony of sounds, smell the salty air, and feel the frenetic energy of the crowd on the beach. Photography, like painting, is about finding new ways of seeing the world. Frank was clearly influenced by Walker Evans, but he pushed things further, breaking the rules and forging his own path. He reminds us that art is about dialogue, an exchange of ideas that stretches across time. It’s like a painter looking at another painter's work, and they're like, "Yeah, I see what you did there. Now watch this!"