Paris 15 1959

Robert Frank made this contact sheet "Paris 15" using photographic paper. It's a jumble of images, right? When I look at this, I feel like Frank is sifting through a bunch of different moments and views of Paris, playing with their arrangement, and seeing how they look together. There's a real intimacy to seeing a photographer's contact sheet, like this one— it’s like seeing them at work, trying out different crops and compositions. Some of the shots seem casual, like snapshots, while others have a more deliberate composition. I imagine Frank wandering around the city with his camera, trying to capture the essence of Paris. Some of these frames are upside down. I wonder what his intentions might have been? This makes me think about photographers like Garry Winogrand and Lisette Model, who were also great at capturing the raw energy of city life. In the end, it’s like he’s having a conversation with the city and with the history of photography itself.