Robert Frank

I'm not comfortable calling Robert Frank's work great art, but I see it as captured reality. From the photos I've seen I believe that Frank had a magnificent sense of timing. The photos aren't taken when they will have the most artistic value, but when the scene could be captured. This timing brings about the reality that I see in his work. Like in the photo above, he could have made it more artistic, in my opinion, if he had captured the man from a profile while he was exhaling smoke. Instead Frank takes a picture while the mans hat covers most of his face and his hands are messing with the cigarette. His work The Americans is the perfect example of his sense of timing. He photoed people doing what they do, while they were doing it, making it real. So to me Robert Frank's work wasn't really art, but more of a documentation of American life when it was happening.

By Derek Klayum