J.L.A. VI c. mid to late 1950s

This sheet of film, J.L.A. VI, was produced by Robert Frank, and it's about the size of a regular piece of paper. What strikes me is how the images are presented as a sequence. Like frames in a comic strip, or maybe a storyboard. It’s process laid bare. You can almost hear the click of the shutter, the advance of the film. Each frame is a moment, a gesture, a fragment of a larger story. Look at the strip near the top: a trumpet hovers in mid-air, abstracted, followed by a glimpse of a formal gathering. It’s like life itself – a mix of the profound and the banal, the staged and the spontaneous. There's a raw, unedited quality to the film. Frank’s work reminds me a little of Garry Winogrand, who also had a knack for capturing the pulse of everyday life, although Frank’s work always had a deeper, more melancholic undercurrent. Ultimately, it’s about letting go of control and embracing the beauty of imperfection.