Circus, Palisades 7 1958

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, *Circus, Palisades 7*, using photographic paper to record and develop the negatives from his camera. Imagine Frank in the darkroom, hunched over the developer trays, watching these images emerge, these strips of film that capture a world within a world. The circus feels gritty, not glamorous. It’s all captured in a high contrast black and white film, and there are so many faces looking back at us. I wonder, was Frank drawn to the circus because it was a readymade community of outcasts and performers? Photography is a bit like painting; you crop and frame and edit to find the heart of the thing. The rows of images on this one sheet feel like a series of brushstrokes, each one building up the texture of the scene. In each frame we catch sight of something new, and each photo is a variation on a theme. It's the repetition that gives it a rhythm, a beat like the circus itself.