Valencia, Spain 15 1952

Robert Frank took this photo strip in Valencia, Spain, sometime in his career as a photographer, probably with a small camera. The strip itself looks like it’s been through the wringer! I imagine Frank walking around the streets, trying to capture the everyday life of the town. You can see the images of crowds of people carrying baskets, and Frank has circled some of the frames in red grease pencil, maybe the shots he thought were the strongest. I wonder what he was thinking when he circled those frames? Was he trying to isolate something specific, or was he just drawn to the overall composition? These marked frames, for me, have a special energy, like a painter highlighting a detail in a sketch. Photography is always about selection, but it’s interesting to see how Frank physically marked up the strip. It reminds us that artists are in an ongoing conversation, exchanging ideas and inspiring one another, even across different mediums.