Election day--Switzerland 8 1949

Editor: So, this is Robert Frank's "Election Day—Switzerland 8," from 1949, a gelatin silver print showing a contact sheet of various exposures. It gives a really raw, behind-the-scenes feel to photography...almost like a sculptor showing their working molds. What stands out to you about it? Curator: What grabs me is the indexicality of the contact sheet itself. The emulsion on the film strip registers light, capturing slices of time from this Swiss election day. Then, that physical strip is pressed onto the photographic paper to create *this* object. Editor: I see what you mean. It is layers of processes building the final piece we are viewing. Curator: Exactly. The image content—groups of people, landscapes—is secondary to how Frank chooses to reveal the labor and mechanical reproduction involved in creating a photograph. We're not just seeing a finished image; we’re witnessing its making. Look at the borders. AGFA, ISOPAN F. These are the materials that created this object. Editor: The labels surrounding the pictures themselves! You're right. I was focused on the photographs and the individuals in them at first, without registering the whole sheet. Curator: Consider the social context, too. Post-war Switzerland. Frank, an immigrant, capturing everyday life. His choice to expose the process…what does it say about consumption, about image making in that era? About whose stories get told and how? Editor: So you're saying that, by showing the process, Frank might be hinting at the idea that images aren't neutral? Curator: Precisely! Every step – the film, the development, the selection – reflects choices, perspectives, labor. It challenges us to think critically about the consumption of images, the making of them, and whose interests are really at play. Editor: I will definitely look differently at photographs from now on. Thanks for your expertise in materialist perspective. Curator: And I learned something about first impressions. A photograph is also an *object* with physical features to analyze and consider to discover the message beyond what the lenses capture.