34th Street--Early New York City no number 1953 - 1954

Here we have Robert Frank’s photographic contact sheet, "34th Street – Early New York City." What is so revealing in the work is the process itself. The composition of each exposure, with the sprocket holes, feels like a visual record of how the image was made, of the artist's intentions at the time of the shoot. The monochrome images are fascinating in their range of tones; stark whites and dark shadows capture the city's electric hum. Frank reveals his mark-making, his selection, and editing, by showing us the whole roll. In this sense, each tiny frame is like a brushstroke, a gesture which contributes to the whole. Like many great photographers of the time, think of Helen Levitt, there's a sense of everyday life, captured on the fly, without too much staging or artifice. These artists are almost like documentarians, revealing the poetics of the everyday. Ultimately, this contact sheet, this object, is not just a series of photographs, but a reflection on the act of seeing and recording.