Man sitting on steps of monument--Casper, Wyoming 1956

Robert Frank made this photograph, Man sitting on steps of monument--Casper, Wyoming, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The black and white image is grainy, and the composition is stark, like a sketch that lays bare the scene’s bones. There’s a directness in the way Frank captures the subject, a man perched on the steps of a monument, the shadow of the pillar reaching out like an accusing finger. The light is flat and unforgiving, yet it reveals the textures of the concrete and the rough, uneven ground. Look at the way the shadow bisects the frame; it’s so solid, so present, it feels like another figure in the scene. That shadow, its weight and form, echoes the bulk of the monument, turning something insubstantial into something almost architectural. Frank's eye reminds me a little of Walker Evans, but with a more restless, searching quality. This image, like so much of Frank's work, captures something unresolved, a question lingering in the air.