Hillside overlooking parking lot--Los Angeles 1956

Robert Frank made "Hillside overlooking parking lot--Los Angeles" using black and white film, and it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a photograph. The gray scale here is so important - the values, the darkness, the light. The mood of this shot reminds me that art is all about choosing. What to include, what to exclude, what to emphasize. Frank’s perspective, high above the crowded parking lot, gives you this weird sense of detachment. I can almost feel the scratchy texture of the grass under the feet of the figures in the foreground. They are a little blurred, suggesting motion, and this contrasts with the solid immobility of the cars below. The soft focus adds to the dreamlike atmosphere, hinting at the transient nature of experience. His work reminds us that images are not just documents, but subjective interpretations of the world, full of subtle beauty and contradiction. Like a more melancholy Garry Winogrand.