Guggenheim 646B--San Francisco c. 1956

Robert Frank made this contact sheet in San Francisco using a camera and photographic paper. It's like a painter's sketchbook, a collection of moments, some in focus, some not, a record of looking and seeing. I imagine Frank wandering the streets, his camera a quick extension of his eye, framing a shot, moving on. He’s catching life in the raw—a street scene, a crowd, a small child. The darkroom work feels intimate. The film strips laid out, the decisions about what to print, what to discard. Each image a fragment, hinting at stories, the drama of everyday life. I see some echoes of Walker Evans, maybe a touch of Cartier-Bresson, but with Frank's own restless energy, a bit rougher, more immediate. It’s a reminder that photography, like painting, is about capturing a feeling, not just a likeness, and how one artist can have a conversation with the next just through the simple act of image-making.