Skiers at camp--Sports 1941 - 1945

Robert Frank made this small photograph of skiers at camp sometime in the mid-twentieth century, using, I'd guess, a small, handheld camera. It's a pretty casual shot, not overly composed, more about capturing a moment. The textures are gorgeous - the rough wood of the cabin, the grainy snow, the smooth slopes in the background. It's a study in black and white, where tones become everything. There’s this one figure, center-left, with a backpack. The way the light catches the pack, almost flattening it, gives him this strange, otherworldly presence. He’s there, but also kind of abstract. Frank had a knack for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, a bit like Walker Evans. And like Evans, there’s a sense that he's not trying to pretty things up. It’s about showing life as it is, in all its messy, beautiful imperfection.