Untitled (Antiques) c. 1958

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, Untitled (Antiques), and what hits you first is the grain, that grit and bloom that comes from light hitting silver. It's so different from the smoothed-out images we get now, and it makes me think about the process of image-making. There's a kind of raw honesty in that texture. The way the light flares around the lamps and the edges of the furniture gives everything this sort of halo. Look how the women’s pearls glow, and then their faces too. They are at once very present and also somehow suspended in time, like the antiques they are looking at. It reminds me a bit of Helen Levitt's street photography, that same casual, unplanned quality and love for the beauty in everyday life. Ultimately, this photograph reminds us that seeing is active, and that meaning comes from the way we choose to frame the world.