Power lines connected to building--Los Angeles c. 1955 - 1956

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print of power lines connected to a building in Los Angeles. It's this dance of light and dark that really grabs you, isn’t it? The grey scale is rich, not exactly black and white, but like a hazy dream. Look at how the lines of the power lines cut across the heavy texture of the building, making dynamic geometry. There’s something so alive in the way these lines crisscross; they look like a quick sketch, something he just grabbed in passing. And then there’s that wall, so tactile you can almost feel its grit. The way the light washes over it, it’s like he’s painting with light. This reminds me a bit of Moholy-Nagy’s photograms, with their stark contrasts and experiments with light and shadow. In both artists' work, there's this embrace of ambiguity that makes you want to keep looking, to keep thinking.