Band before clock tower--40 Fotos 1941 - 1945

Robert Frank made this photograph, “Band before clock tower—40 Fotos”, with a camera, of course, and a keen eye for the not-so-obvious. It’s all in shades of grey, but look how Frank coaxes so much out of that limited palette. What grabs me is how he crams everything into the frame. The photo feels like a snapshot, something caught on the fly, but he's clearly composed it like a painter. There's this band, see, all squeezed together, and above them, this looming clock tower, like time itself is bearing down. Then there’s the conductor with his baton, a line cutting through the sky. He uses these contrasts—the soft blur of the sky against the sharp lines of the architecture—to make the image sing. Frank reminds me of Walker Evans, in a way. Both artists looked at the everyday and found the extraordinary. But while Evans was all about clarity, Frank embraced the grit. It's like he's saying, "Life's messy, and that's okay." It’s a philosophy I can definitely get behind.