Paris 3 1960

Robert Frank's 'Paris 3' is a small gelatin silver print of a contact sheet, a window into the artist's process. I see the evidence of trial, error, and intuition, the artist shifting and emerging through the image as he finds his way. I feel for Frank, really, as he must have peered through the camera, wandering the streets of Paris, trying to make sense of the world through this little machine. What was he thinking when he circled those frames in red, trying to isolate something special? He was trying to isolate a moment, a feeling. I see echoes of other photographers, like Eugène Atget, who also wandered the streets of Paris, documenting its beauty and decay. It makes me think about how artists are in an ongoing conversation, exchanging ideas across time, inspiring each other. It's like a game of telephone, but instead of a message getting garbled, it becomes something new and beautiful.