Switzerland 11 1961

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, Switzerland 11, sometime in the mid-20th century. It’s a glimpse into his process, a raw, unfiltered look at how he saw the world through his lens. What grabs me is the texture of the film itself. You can almost feel the graininess, the imperfections that digital photography tries so hard to erase. There's a strip with a woman wearing sunglasses, she's framed in red. And above her, a sequence of upside-down faces, each one slightly different. It's like Frank is playing with perspective, challenging our assumptions about how we see things. This piece reminds me a bit of Garry Winogrand's street photography, that same sense of capturing fleeting moments, the messy, unscripted reality of everyday life. And like Winogrand, Frank isn't afraid to leave things open-ended, inviting us to find our own meaning in the chaos.