Family--New York City no number 1954

Robert Frank made this photographic contact sheet, 'Family--New York City no number', sometime during his life. I'm drawn to the raw, almost diaristic quality of it. You see these strips of film, a sequence of moments, laid out like memories pinned to a board. There's a real contrast between the intimacy of the family scenes, and the mechanical nature of the film itself. It's like Frank is saying something about how we experience and preserve our lives. Check out frame 32 for example; you can see the grain, the imperfections, which give it this gritty, real feel. It reminds me a bit of Nan Goldin's work, that same unflinching gaze at life's messy realities. It's like Frank's inviting us to question what family means. There's no clear answer, just fragments, glimpses, open to interpretation.