Dimensions: overall: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in.)
Copyright: National Gallery of Art: CC0 1.0
This is Robert Frank's, William F. Buckley, Jr. for "Mademoiselle" 3, a gelatin silver print. It feels like Frank wasn’t just taking a picture; he was wrestling with the image, working through a problem. The dark areas aren't just background, they feel like a presence, a mood, looming over Buckley's strips of film. The materiality of the thing; the silver reacting to light, the grain of the film itself. The marks, the scratches and imperfections, they’re all part of the story. It’s like Frank is saying, "Here's the raw stuff, the guts of the image." He lays bare the process, the film strip, the evidence of the shot, and it brings it alive. It reminds me a little of what Moholy-Nagy was doing with photograms. Both artists see photography as more than just capturing a moment, but a way of playing with light, texture, and form. Frank is part of an ongoing conversation in art, about how we see, and how we make sense of the world.
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