Hillside--Ashland, Pennsylvania 1956

This silvery gelatin print, Hillside--Ashland, Pennsylvania, was captured by Robert Frank. I love the composition of this; the vantage point makes me feel like I'm perched atop a gritty precipice, peering out at something far away. I wonder what Frank might have been thinking when he made this image. There's a town in the distance, but the foreground is so stark and rocky. There is a melancholic mood, a kind of quiet reflection. That contrast is what gets me: civilization versus desolation, near versus far, black and white, a whole world distilled onto a small sheet. It's like a landscape painting, but with the raw immediacy that only a photograph can capture. Painting and photography, both are ways of seeing, both are ways of feeling. One artist inspires another.