Park--New York City no number 1954

This sheet of celluloid by Robert Frank holds multiple images of a New York park. You know, those strips of negatives are like a painter's preliminary sketches, a peek into the artist’s process. I imagine Frank wandering through the park, camera in hand, his eye catching snippets of life. Each frame is a quick study, a moment grabbed from the flow of city life. It’s like he’s searching for something, maybe the essence of the place, or the feeling of being there. The composition is so loose, so casual, it feels like he’s just pointing and shooting. It’s raw and immediate, like a painter’s first marks on a canvas. He wasn’t trying to get it right; he was just trying to see. Photography and painting feed off each other, you know? Each informs the other, pushing the boundaries of representation. Frank’s work, like a lot of painting, invites us to see the world in a new way, to embrace the beauty of imperfection.