Nuns--San Francisco 1956

Robert Frank made this photograph, Nuns—San Francisco, most likely in the 1950s, using black and white film. Look at how the composition is bisected, dividing the receding cars and men in suits on one side, from the imposing forms of the nuns in the foreground. The tonal range here is so rich, from the cool gray concrete to the deep matte black of the nuns’ habits. Notice how Frank captures the texture of the fabric, almost sculptural in its heavy folds. The way the light glances off these shapes gives them a monumental quality, though they remain anonymous, unknowable. There’s a similar feeling in some of the photographs of Lisette Model, whose work also finds strange beauty in the overlooked corners of city life. Ultimately, this picture, like all great art, resists easy answers, offering instead a space for contemplation.