Peru 1948

This photograph was taken in Peru by Robert Frank. Imagine him there, squinting in the bright light, framing the shot, deciding whether to focus on the woman or the donkey. I love the tension between them, the near and far. The woman stands in shadow, while the donkey is caught in the full glare of the sun. They're both walking towards us, but their paths don't seem to converge. There's something melancholic about this, something about the starkness of the light and the blank walls, that reminds me of Giorgio de Chirico's surrealist paintings. Frank's images always have this quality, where they capture a sense of place and time, but also hint at something deeper, something about the human condition. He sees the world with an unflinching eye, finding beauty and sadness in equal measure. It is a kind of alchemy, isn't it, this ability to transform the everyday into art?