Guggenheim 165--Inauguration, Washington, D.C. 1957

Here's a photographic contact sheet of Robert Frank's shots at an inauguration in Washington D.C. I really get a kick out of seeing the editing process laid bare like this. It's like looking at a painter’s underpainting, all the choices and mistakes still visible, so you can understand how the final work came to be. Frank’s got these frames, all lined up – street views, crowds, trees. You can see where he's marked some up, choosing which ones to focus on. He’s looking for something specific. I wonder what it felt like to be him in that moment, camera in hand, trying to capture something of the mood or the meaning of the day? The thing about photography, like painting, is that you’re always trying to pin down something elusive, a feeling or idea that you can’t quite name. It's this back-and-forth that pushes the work forward. Artists are always building on each other's ideas, you know, like a big conversation that stretches across time.