Mabou, Nova Scotia 1991

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, Mabou, Nova Scotia, sometime in his life. I love the blurriness of this image, and how the light seems to both reveal and conceal what’s in the shot. It's like trying to remember a dream. There’s a flamingo trapped in a bottle, which sits on a weathered post. The whole scene is imbued with a sense of melancholic stillness, but this could just as easily be Frank’s wry humor. That he chose to isolate this kitschy object in such a humble environment speaks volumes about his feelings towards contemporary culture, or the commodification of nature. It’s grainy and dark, and yet the composition is so carefully considered, that distant orb of light echoing the form of the bottle. It makes me think of artists like Gerhard Richter who embraced chance operations in their painting, allowing the image to emerge through a process of layering and erasure. Ultimately, this feels like a poignant meditation on impermanence and the fragile beauty of the everyday.