Andraitx, Spain 2 1952

Robert Frank shot this contact sheet from his time in Andraitx, Spain. I imagine him in his darkroom, hunched over, the red light casting shadows as he coaxes these images from the film. Look at how he's marked certain frames with red pencil, like a painter editing a canvas. Frank’s images are gritty, immediate, and deeply personal. He captures moments that feel both fleeting and monumental. The texture is raw; you can almost feel the graininess of the film, the high contrast. His work reminds me a little of what the Abstract Expressionists like Kline were doing. They were all trying to find a new language, to express the inexpressible. The raw emotion, the immediacy, the way the process itself becomes part of the statement, Frank's contact sheet is not so different from a painter's sketchbook. It’s all part of the same conversation really.