Spain 1949

Robert Frank made this photograph, titled Spain, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. It's a small gelatin silver print, but packs a punch. There's a certain graininess to the image, a kind of raw, unfiltered quality, that reminds me of my own work, where the process is visible. It’s like Frank is saying, “Here’s the world, unvarnished.” The composition feels so immediate, capturing a woman and child at a drinking fountain. The way the light catches the child’s face is striking, while the rest of the image is shrouded in shadow. The pose is awkward, the child held up to the fountain, with the mother looking down. It feels so fleeting. The textures in this photograph give it its depth; the smoothness of the fountain against the soft folds of the clothing. And that stark contrast, the way Frank plays with light and dark, it's something he'd continue to do throughout his career. Like Walker Evans, Frank shows us the world as it is, inviting us to find beauty in the everyday.