Raoul Hague, Woodstock, New York 1962

Robert Frank took this photograph, Raoul Hague, Woodstock, New York, sometime in the twentieth century, the exact date is unknown. It's a black and white photograph of two men staring out at a receding landscape. I want to know what the process of creating this photograph was like for Frank: was it a single shot, or did he take multiple photographs? What was he hoping to capture? The men are not looking at each other. In fact, the man in the foreground seems to be deeply contemplating something. Is it the landscape, or the nature of their friendship? Frank's high contrast brings out the detail in the men’s faces and clothes, and the landscape, flattening the affect and heightening the drama. The composition has an uneasy equilibrium about it – what’s the story? What’s going on? Maybe the artist is trying to show us that all is not as it seems…