Congressional W c. 1954 - 1955

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, Congressional W, using photographic paper and film. In this work, Frank presents a sequence of images, perhaps taken on a train. We see a series of men in suits – presumably the congressmen mentioned in the title – and servers attending to them. Frank was meticulous in his editing process, often marking images for exclusion with a grease pencil. These decisions weren't merely about aesthetics; they speak to the heart of photography's relationship to truth. By choosing which images to discard, Frank exercised a power over the narrative, shaping our understanding of the scene. This is labor in the photographic process. Considering photography as a craft, Frank used the camera as a tool, and the darkroom as his workshop. With his decisive choices, he reminds us that photography is never a neutral act but a constructed reality, imbued with the photographer's vision and social context.