Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky--Kansas City 5 1966

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, showing Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky in Kansas City, using a camera and photographic paper. Isn’t it cool how Frank leaves the film strip whole? The edges, the numbers, the whole sense of the roll unspooling. It’s like he's showing us the guts of the process, not just the perfect shot but everything around it, the outtakes, the almost-theres. This rawness, that’s pure Frank, right? He wasn't trying to hide anything. The grain, the blur, it's all part of the story. If you look closely, you can see how some of the shots are overexposed, some underexposed, but even those “mistakes” add something. It's like he’s saying, "Here’s life, unfiltered, a little messy, a little chaotic, but real." I love that. It reminds me of rough sketches, the kind where the artist isn't afraid to let the process show, all the starts and stops and changes of mind. It feels connected to the work of someone like Lisette Model who was interested in capturing the grit and energy of the street. Both artists share an eye for the everyday, the unposed, the real.