Guggenheim 726--Salt Lake City, Utah and Omaha, Nebraska 1956

Robert Frank made this photo contact sheet, "Guggenheim 726--Salt Lake City, Utah and Omaha, Nebraska," sometime in the mid-twentieth century using gelatin silver prints. It's a real testament to art-making as a process, isn't it? The way Frank lays out these images, it’s like a visual diary, or maybe a storyboard. The texture is inherent, of course, to the photographic process, but look at the top of the frame, where "Salt Lake" is scrawled. The physicality of the ink sits in stark contrast to the slippery, smooth surface of the film strip. I'm drawn to how the clarity of some frames contrast with the murkiness of others. Take for instance, frame 26, highlighted with a red border. Is that a photo booth? A mirror? The ambiguity is so potent! Frank’s work reminds me a bit of Garry Winogrand, another street photographer with a knack for capturing the frenetic energy of everyday life. Like Winogrand, Frank embraces the messy, the imperfect, and the unresolved.