Mary, Pablo, and Andrea--Los Angeles 1956

Robert Frank made "Mary, Pablo, and Andrea--Los Angeles" with film and a camera, no specific date known. It's a slice of life, a monochrome moment, but it’s the light that gets me – the way it falls, almost like paint. The surface has this grainy realness to it, like the world isn't smooth, not perfect. Look at the table, how it catches the light, not evenly, but in patches, revealing the wear and tear, the history. It’s about what’s caught, not constructed. I guess he wants to show us the world as he saw it, a little off-kilter, a little rough around the edges, very human. The picture sits in a tradition of American photographers like Walker Evans, but there’s something looser here, more raw, like the moment matters more than the composition. And maybe that’s the point. The process of seeing, of capturing a moment, is just as important as what’s actually in the frame.