Ghost town--Wyoming 1956

This gelatin silver print, "Ghost town--Wyoming," was made by Robert Frank, who passed away in 2019. Photography seems like a straightforward medium; we point and shoot. But the darkroom processes are alchemical. Light-sensitive paper, chemical baths, and skilled dodging and burning, all enable the photographer to transform reality. Here, the high contrast and grainy texture give the image an almost brutal feel, despite its small scale. Frank was Swiss, but he deeply affected the way Americans saw themselves, especially in his famous book "The Americans". The abandoned town in this photograph speaks to that project. It’s a stark statement about the boom-and-bust cycle of capitalism, and the way it chews up communities and spits them out. Frank never sentimentalized the victims of this process; his work is tough-minded, and all the more powerful for it. Ultimately, photographs like this remind us that even the most apparently transparent art forms are made. And they have something to tell us about society.