Wales 29 1953

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, entitled Wales 29, to organize his photographs. He was likely using gelatin silver to develop the film and create the photographic paper. It’s like a storyboard, a visual diary, or a field of related images. I can imagine Frank, hunched over his materials in the darkroom, making choices, cropping, and arranging, creating a narrative through selection and juxtaposition. There is a red 24 scrawled on the top of the sheet. I wonder about that mark-making. It feels intimate. Like a secret for him alone. The dark shadows and high contrast add to its emotional depth and rawness. The way Frank layers images, lets them bleed into one another, reminds me that painting, photography, all art forms, are in constant conversation across time. We are all in this messy, beautiful dialogue together, making marks, telling stories, and trying to make sense of this world.