Guggenheim 758--Jay, New York 1956

This is Robert Frank’s Guggenheim 758--Jay, New York, a gelatin silver print. It's like a storyboard of different scenes, a series of moments captured on a single sheet, which gives a sense of flow, movement, and time passing. I’m drawn to the material quality of photography. It’s so different from painting! Here the texture is in the grain of the image, the way light and shadow play across the surface. Look at the bottom row with the American flag, it's like a punch in the face. It's graphic and gritty and says so much about the subject. You could easily see one frame isolated as the main subject of the picture, but Frank is showing us his working process; a collection of source material. Frank's contact sheet style is a reminder that art is about the journey, the exploration, not just the final destination. You see the same approach to process in the work of Garry Winogrand, who, like Frank, was out there on the streets just grabbing pictures.