Store window--Lincoln, Nebraska 1956

Robert Frank snapped "Store window--Lincoln, Nebraska" using his camera, freezing a moment in time. The grainy texture gives it a raw, documentary feel, like a page torn from a personal diary. The contrast between the man and the mannequin, the real and the artificial, is stark. Look at the way the light catches the smudges on the window, creating a veil between us and the scene, it’s a photograph about photography, about looking, about what we choose to see and how we see it. The real and unreal become blurred. The composition itself is a little off-kilter, a bit uneasy, which adds to the feeling of something being slightly out of joint. It's as if the world is not quite as it seems, or as it should be. Frank's work often plays with this sense of unease, this feeling of being an outsider looking in, a bit like Garry Winogrand's street photography, which captures the frenetic energy of city life with a similar sense of immediacy and imperfection. There are no answers here, just a lot of questions, and that's what makes it so compelling, even now.