Barbershop--Florida 15 1958

This is Robert Frank’s photo contact sheet, *Barbershop--Florida 15*. I love how it gathers up many moments, like a painter might layer up many different versions of an image. It's like Frank is circling the subject, and we get to see his process here, his edits, his eye, making a decision. I wonder what it must have been like to be in that Barbershop with him, or what he was thinking when he decided to shoot it through the window. Photography, like painting, has a funny way of capturing both a scene and the act of looking at that scene all at once. And I'm really drawn to how the mundane, like a barbershop, becomes iconic through his lens, like all those barbershop paintings by Jacob Lawrence, that are totally different but also share something. It reminds us that art isn't just about grand subjects, it's also about finding the extraordinary in the everyday.