Raoul Hague 4 1962

This is Robert Frank’s ‘Raoul Hague 4,’ a small black and white photograph, contact sheet. You know, those strips of negatives that photographers use to check their images? I’m imagining Frank pacing around, developing his film, then squinting at these tiny frames, trying to make sense of his day, his subjects, and his own choices. Look at the mix of interiors—windows, clocks, and landscapes—a man standing, posing, leaning. There's something so intimate about seeing these working notes, as if we are privy to the artist’s thought process, a kind of behind-the-scenes of the creative process. I feel a kinship with Frank here, trying to wrangle the chaos of life into some kind of meaningful order, I think to myself: How do we ever really know what we're doing until we see it all laid out like this? It’s like life, trial and error, error and intuition.