Long Island no number c. 1958 - 1959

This is Robert Frank's "Long Island no number," a photo contact sheet; a set of images created with light and chemistry. I think of it as a painterly object, because it's about the touch, about the feel of time passing. The images document people hanging out at the beach. You can see the emulsion, the grain, the physical texture, all that good stuff. Note the film edge with its numbers and details - these are the fingerprints of the work. Those frames at the bottom, those upside down faces; it's like Frank flipped the bird to conventional picture taking! They’re dreamy and messed up. Frank reminds me of photographers like Garry Winogrand, who are just out there grabbing life as it happens. It's not about perfection, it's about a kind of raw honesty. It's about seeing, really seeing. The work resists closure, it embraces the incomplete, the off-kilter, the beautifully, humanly flawed.