On ship--New York to Paris no number 1949

Robert Frank made this film strip, "On ship--New York to Paris no number" with a camera, maybe around the middle of the last century. You see how one image bleeds into the next, a series of impressions, like memories overlapping. I imagine Frank on that ship, restless, looking for the right shot, the telling detail. Was he seasick? I always am! He's working with such limited means, film and light, but he squeezes so much out of it. You can feel the rhythm of the ship, the vastness of the ocean. Look at the way he captures light, how it glares and fades, creating mood and depth. It’s like he’s painting with the camera, using light and shadow to sculpt the scene. It makes me think about other artists like Gerhard Richter who also blurred the lines between photography and painting. Ultimately, it is about seeing, about trying to capture a fleeting moment, a feeling, an experience.