Men seated in lobby--Houston, Texas 1955

Robert Frank made this photograph, "Men seated in lobby--Houston, Texas," sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The image is full of quiet observation, a kind of casual noticing of how people arrange themselves in spaces. Look at how Frank uses light and shadow – the way the light from the window washes out the figures in the back, almost ghosting them. Then your eye comes forward, into the shadows that give form to the lamp and the men in the foreground. The texture of the print itself has a beautiful graininess, almost like it’s been rubbed raw. It’s not slick or polished. Instead, it feels immediate, like a snapshot grabbed on the fly. Frank reminds me a little of Walker Evans, but maybe with a touch more grit. Both are masters of capturing everyday life, turning the mundane into something worth really seeing. This photograph isn't about grand gestures, but it’s about finding grace in the ordinary, finding poetry in the plain.