Wales 8 1953

Robert Frank made this photographic print called Wales 8, and what I see are rows of dark grey film strips placed closely together, each a sequence of different shots. Look at the way the photos are printed, the darks dense like charcoal. I get a sense of urgency and a kind of off-the-cuff approach that you sometimes find in the contact sheets of photographers. It's like looking over the shoulder of a filmmaker, seeing the rushes and the takes that eventually get edited into the final cut. You can imagine the artist sifting through, pausing over a particular frame, considering its potential. You get the feeling that Frank wasn't precious about his photographs. He's working within a tradition of street photography, and that aesthetic values the rough and ready over the carefully constructed. It's all about capturing the raw energy of lived experience and allowing for the messiness of real life. He's in dialogue with all those photographers who hit the streets, looking for truth.