Flowers on Cadillac hearse--Early New York City 3 1955

Robert Frank made this contact sheet of Flowers on Cadillac hearse in Early New York City. What strikes me is its raw, diaristic quality. It's like looking over the artist's shoulder as they rifle through their pictures. You can see the orange grease pencil marks where he’s cropped certain frames. I feel like he’s inviting us into his editing process. It makes me think about how so many images are taken but so few make the cut. What’s the criteria? The composition? The emotion? The light? How do you choose what stays and what goes? I ask myself that all the time in the studio, when is a painting finished? That this is the image he wanted us to see is a statement. I wonder what his thought process was and how he came to the final choice. In the end, it is up to the artist to make these decisions and offer new and various ways of seeing to the viewer.