Le Canal du Nord--Paris 8B 1951 - 1952

Robert Frank captured this grid of photographic film, Le Canal du Nord--Paris 8B, with his camera, his eye, and his heart. It’s like a sketchbook page, where the artist has worked through a bunch of ideas, and then circled the one they like. I wonder what it was like for Frank, lining up the shots, waiting for that perfect alignment of light and form. You know, painting can feel like that too, a kind of hunting and gathering. Except you're hunting for an image instead of the perfect shot. Was he thinking about Atget, the great documentarian of Paris? I bet he was. He’s playing with light and shadow, but also with this feeling of time passing. The blue marks are interesting. It feels so casual but decisive. Like he's saying, "This one, this is the one that speaks to me." It's kind of cool how one artist can reach out to another across time, isn't it? Like we're all just part of this big conversation, trying to figure out what it all means.