Lunch counter--Chattanooga, Tennessee 1955

Robert Frank took this photograph, Lunch counter--Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's a black and white photograph with a long line of people sitting and standing at a lunch counter, and I just want to reach out and grab the light. What I mean is, the way he’s captured the light, the way it bounces off those surfaces, especially the backs of those white shirts, is just beautiful. You can see the range of the light, and the shadows in the image. I can feel the grit of the film, the graininess adding texture and depth. I imagine Frank, moving through space, always looking, looking for ways to make this photograph. I wonder what he was thinking when he pressed the shutter. The composition is so evocative, like a scene from a film noir, each figure telling a story we can only guess at. It reminds me of other photographers like, Walker Evans or Roy DeCarava. I love how photographs and paintings talk to each other, across time.