Fourth of July—Jay, New York 1956

Robert Frank’s black and white photograph captures a slice of small-town America, on what I imagine was a hot July day. I can almost feel the stillness of the day. The only movement here seems to be the slight variations in light and shadow across the composition. It’s like one of those old folk paintings, with a collection of characters all lined up along a horizontal line. The longer you look at this photograph, the more you start noticing the contrasts in the composition. I wonder what it was like for Frank to capture this scene, to decide where to stand, what to include, and what to leave out. There’s a sense of both detachment and intimacy, the mundane and the mythic. And I keep asking myself, what do those faces suggest? I imagine Frank must have been having a conversation with other photographers like Walker Evans. Artists are always picking up on each other’s ideas, riffing and playing in their own way. Frank makes us see the quiet poetry in the everyday. He reminds me that art is not just about what we see, but how we see it.