Guggenheim 679--Salt Lake City, Utah 1956

Robert Frank created this contact sheet from his Guggenheim Fellowship, probably using gelatin silver to transfer his images onto the photographic paper. I can imagine him in the darkroom, hunched over the developing tray, the red light casting an eerie glow. What was he thinking as he laid out these frames? A lone figure captured in a square, a detail of a crowd in another. The red marker he used to isolate particular frames jumps out and it makes me wonder why those specific images appealed to him. The dark, inky blacks and the way he seems to crop his images so tightly, speaks to a kind of raw, immediate seeing. I think of other photographers who captured America with such grit and honesty, like Diane Arbus. There’s a shared desire to show us the underbelly, the parts we often ignore. Maybe it's this unpolished, restless quality that makes it so compelling. It’s not about perfection, but about a search, a kind of visual thinking that allows the viewer to feel like they're piecing together a puzzle. And isn't that what art is all about, an invitation to see the world in a new way?