Butcher shop window, Paris 1951

Robert Frank’s photograph, Butcher shop window, Paris, is this slice of life captured with film, in tones of gray that feel both stark and intimate. What grabs me is how Frank coaxes so much feeling from a limited palette. The image is built around contrast; bright reflections on the glass versus the deep, cavernous shadows inside the shop. The hanging carcasses are almost sculptural, looming like monuments to something primal. Then there are the figures, blurred and ghostlike, caught in the act of living, buying, selling. Look how the grain of the film is really visible, it's not a slick image. You can see the texture; it’s almost like the whole scene is dissolving before your eyes. It makes you think about transience, decay, the way everything shifts and changes. It reminds me a bit of some of the German Expressionist painters like Otto Dix, who weren't afraid to show the darker, more uncomfortable sides of life. Ultimately, that's what makes it so compelling.