Pool hall--Wyoming 1956

Robert Frank shot this photograph of a Wyoming pool hall sometime in the mid-20th century using black and white film. The image seems to have been made with a kind of brutal honesty; Frank documented the world as he found it. There's something really beautiful in the flatness of this image. The light flattens everything into an almost-grey scale. The pool table stretches horizontally across the lower part of the frame, and the eye is led upward to the details in the background: cues, chairs, and a landscape painting that could be the real Wyoming. It’s so somber. The sign that reads “Do not sit on tables” is so authoritarian, but the single white ball on the green table is wonderfully evocative. It's a very simple composition that achieves a high level of emotion. I’m reminded of Walker Evans, who captured a similar sense of American life with a raw, unfettered edge.