Women at entrance--San Francisco 1956

This black and white photograph, “Women at entrance—San Francisco,” was taken by Robert Frank. It seems like Frank is interested in the process of looking, or maybe who gets to look. The woman to the right is staring directly at us, or maybe past us, she’s unreadable. The woman in the reflection is obscured, she's a mirage almost, and her gaze is directed elsewhere. The two women’s faces are the anchors of the composition. The architectural details on the right of the photograph form a rigid contrast to the fluidity of the reflection. It’s like Frank is saying, what is real? What is solid? Frank is part of an important conversation around street photography along with artists like Helen Levitt and Diane Arbus, all of whom embrace a similar ambiguity and challenge conventional ways of seeing.