Filming Elia Kazan's "Wild River"--Tennessee 7 Possibly 1959

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, "Filming Elia Kazan's "Wild River"--Tennessee 7," using gelatin silver print. The whole thing is laid bare, here, for us to see. The artist's selections, his mistakes, his process! It's all part of the work itself. Look at the grainy blacks and whites, how they shift and change across the frames. The subject matter, the cars, the buildings, are interesting, but it’s more about the rhythm, the way the images echo and repeat. Like a song with a recurring melody. And then there's that orange marker, circling and crossing out images. Those marks become part of the story, adding a layer of decision-making, of editing. It reminds me of painting, where you're constantly adding and subtracting, building up layers of meaning through a process of trial and error. It's like Frank is saying, "This is how I see, how I choose, how I make sense of the world." It brings to mind the work of someone like Garry Winogrand, another street photographer who was all about capturing the messy, chaotic beauty of real life.