Paris 47B 1951 - 1952

Here's a photo-contact sheet by Robert Frank, probably made around the late 1940s, maybe in a darkroom somewhere in Paris. I imagine him hunched over trays of developer, fixer, and water, watching these images emerge from the ether. It's a collage of moments, like a visual diary, raw and unfiltered. The blue grease pencil marks feel so immediate, almost like he's talking to himself, circling, questioning what's good, what works, and what doesn't. What was he looking for, I wonder? There are images of crowds, and empty platforms, each frame pulsing with a quiet energy. Frank seems to capture the essence of fleeting moments, the poetry in the mundane. It makes me think about my own process in the studio: the endless cycles of layering, erasing, and reworking. We are always editing, always searching for that elusive something that resonates, like a jazz riff or the last line of a poem. And even though he worked with photography and I work with painting, it feels like we're both speaking the same language of light, shadow, and emotion.