Trip south--Seville, Spain 10/Black White and Things 28 1952

Robert Frank made this photograph, "Trip south--Seville, Spain 10/Black White and Things 28," using film, and it’s all about the gritty texture of life, isn't it? The monochrome palette forces you to see shapes and forms rather than getting lost in the pleasant distraction of colour. What grabs me is the way Frank uses the film strip itself as a compositional element. It’s like a painter leaving the drips, you know? That red marker, scrawled over the top, feels like a painterly gesture, a bold stroke across the surface of the image. It's as if he's saying, "Here, I am present in this process." Frank's work reminds me a lot of what painters like Gerhard Richter were doing, playing with photography, blurring the lines between mediums. It's this ongoing conversation across time, about what art is, and what it can be.