Robert Frank, "The Americans"

A recent thread here on Robert Frank prompted me to haul down my copy

of "The Americans" (reprint from Aperture, not the oridinal

Delpire). I was struck by two things. 1)How very dated so many of

the pictures seemed to be, but not in the Walker Evans sense that

they were "of a time." The cover photograph of a New Orleans

streetcar must have been intended to portray segregation, with a

grumpy looking white lady in the front and a sad looking Negro in the

back. The trouble is that it doesn't work. Not even then, I think,

and certainly not now. There are a few images which hold up, but not

many. 2)The prints are not good, mostly very muddy shadows, and

somewhat flaky contrast. The standards of printing has been raised

by orders of magnitude since these were done. The book was derided

in America when first published because of it's social context --

today I'd say that it fails from a pure photographic viewpoint.

that very much is your opinion. every sheet works for me.

i think it does work

I haven't looked through the book in several months, but many of the images are still quite clear in my memory. And not because they were remarkably bad.

"dated" "doesn't work" "Not even then...certainly not now" "not good" "flakey"

"standards...raised by orders of magnitude" "derided" "fails"

 

Bill:

I'm not finding any substantive criticism here. I can tell you don't like it, but why?

 

By the way, If you are looking at one of those Aperture soft cover books that they send you

with your subscription....my experience is that they compare poorly, print quality wise, to

original publisher sources. So when you say, "The prints are not good...." be aware that

you are not looking at the prints, you're looking at ink reproductions, and poor ones at

that.

I don't think the photographic art world's assessment is going to

hinge on your opinion, Bill.

 

Maybe you'd come up with "muddy" and "dated" for Goya's Black

Paintings?

I don't see the woman in the front of the bus as necessarily

"grumpy" or the woman in the back as "sad". I think that's your

interpretation of it, and I doubt it's what Frank saw or intended to

show when he took the photograph. It remains as a simple

document...... How would you better portray this particular social

and political fact of the time?

Americans is superb, IMHO, it practically sits next to the computer for use during those agonizingly long scans from medium format film ;o)

 

Michael is right though...the quality of the print repro in the book is a possibility. Philadelphia's Museum of Art's ex (or present, I forget now) curator put on a display of his own personal collection of prints from major known photographers, and also had a "museum copy" of the book that complemented the show. The actual show was excellent, the repro's in the book sucked big time.........can't believe he let that happen.

I'd be careful what I said about older photo people here, since last week's thread about the death of Helen Gee got deleted for who knows what.

on the contrary, it is robert frank's "pure photographic viewpoint" which makes "The

Americans" an enduring, fascinating book. let's leave questions of politics, "social

context" and so on aside, let's talk a bit about Frank's photographs from a purely

aesthetic or technical point of view:

 

he was one of the first to "allow" himself to be personal, to be introspective and

unfettered by the "rules" of the time. so we have blur, we have dark shadows, we have

tilting frames, we have elements in and out of focus. Graphically, in fact, Frank is

using a version of Cartier-Bresson famous idea of the decisive moment, but perhaps

in a contrary way, to convey "anti decisive moments" or "indecisive moments" ;

moments of dead time, empty space.

 

Frank used available light photography to, and beyond, the limits of the technology of

the time. Certainly if you shot those same pictures today with modern lenses and film

they would get a bit sharper, contrastier, whatever. But that is precisely besides the

point. The photographic ability to communicate a mood and a emotion can come as

much or more from breaking the technical rules than it does by following them.

 

and it is this approach which prevents "The Americans" from being "dated" -- of

course the cars and fashions are of the '50s -- but the perspective is one that we take

for granted now. Jack Kerouac in the introduction has a visceral, personal response to

the photograph of the girl in the elevator: he wants her telephone number so he can

ask her out on a date! while that might strike some today as a bit misogynist or

insensitive to women, in fact it is the kind of direct, gut-felt, emotion that you

certainly would NOT have had looking at the LIFE magazines of the time. LIFE moved

people thinking about politics, the state of the world, the plight of the unfortunate.

But it did not often, i think, make the viewer feel so implicitly involved in a

photograph that he saw himself talking or relating to a photographic subject in such

a normal, unrestrained way; Frank removed the idea of the "other", the sense that the

people in photographs were unapproachable.

 

The death of LIFE and the other photo magazines was blamed on TV and on the

increasing consumerism of American society and the loss of values that cared about

humanist photojournalism. And that was, and is, true. But it neglects also that LIFE

and its equivalents also failed in part because they were unwilling or unable to

embrace the messier, edgier, more personal techniques that Frank pioneered.

 

To look at "The Americans" today is still to see an intense emotional study, a use of

photography to not only describe and document, but to paint a mood and state of

mind.

Bill - I think you're on thin ice to assume the intent of Frank's New Orleans street car photo and subsequently to judge it a failure to meet YOUR supposed intent. Your job, as viewer, is to bring your willingness to believe to the photo. If you can't muster that then you have failed as the viewer.

Bill---the images were shot almost 50 years ago. Fifty. So they may or may not

look dated. Either way, so be it. If you look at <I>Tulsa</I> by Larry Clark

published in early 1970's it probably looks dated. <I>Tokyo</I> by William

Klein. Yes, it looks a bit dated. For that matter so does some of HCB's images.

The fact that they look old (or dated) isn't bad. Actually, if you don't like the

pictures that's okay, too. No problem. That's how you see them. Last week I

got into a short discussion with a forum member about a Lartique photograph

of Grand Prix racing. He considers the picture "boring". Most of the rest of the

world considers it one of the classic photographs. People don't always agree

on visual perception.<P> Bill, is there a book from that era that you like better?

Perhaps, <I> Family of Man</I>? Maybe Ansel Adams, Eugene Smith or Garry

Winogrand? Or, one today that you really like? Annie Liebowitz, Cindy

Sherman, Brian Lanker, Albert Watson, Salgado, or perhaps Eugene

Richards? It would be interesting to know what you <I>do</I> like.

Bill, is it your intent to simply stir up the pot? That's the only motive I can think of for simply starting a thread to bash Frank's work. I'm glad you're confident enough to feel like you can swim against the current of predominant opinion about "The Americans" but please back it up with some substantive discussion. All I heard was your opinion, not serious critical discussion.

 

Oh, can you define what "a pure photographic viewpoint" is? It helps a discussion when people understand what it is you mean.

There must be a lot of versions. I have the soft cover Scalo version with the cover photo of the flag and two apartment windows with the flag draped over one. I'd consider the printing quality good but not great. For me content is most important and these photos depict Americans and their life at the time they were photographed.

"The trouble is that it doesn't work. Not even then, I think, and certainly not now"

 

How does one determine that a picture doesn't work in a context that is long passed?

 

"The standards of printing has been raised by orders of magnitude since these were done"

 

Available technology has been raised by orders of magnitude as well. Ignoring that for a moment, how you can judge original print quality based on reprints?

Gerald, the Scalo edition is the one I have. It uses the prints that were done in the Delpire edition of the book. I could be wrong but I think the Aperture edition uses the prints from the first US edition. Apparently Frank opted to use softer-contrast renderings for the first US edition of the book. Maybe its the other way around. I can't remember. In any event, the US and French first editions used different prints, but the photo compositions were still the same.

By way of explanation when I said "willingness to believe" I mean "willing suspension of disbelief" which may be more familiar. I think Frank is attracted to windows and mirrors and you see it again and again in The Americans and other works of his. In the New Orleans street car photo you have both. I've always loved the four upper mirror-like windows and their blurry reflections of some other impressionistic reality. In opposition you have the hard clarity of the images in the 4 lower windows, each a frame in itself, each a separate reality. Taken together he gives you a picture of the American South in the 50's. This is not dated, this is history. He gives you all these different realities in one magnificent photo. How many realities can you hold in your mind before it explodes? Because to hold to one reality as the only possible truth is fundamentalism. Frank puts all these realities into his photograph. He is opposed to fundamentalism I think.

Whatever you think about content aside, the relatively recent Scalo edition has the best reproduction of the non-gravure editions (old Delpire / Grove Press). FWIW Delpire published a French version of this Scalo edition for the French market. I once did a side-by-side comparison between the 1959 Grove and Scalo versions, and the Scalo was pretty darn good. The various other versions in between (Aperture, etc.) just can't compete printing-wise.

Got everything but "The Americans"...he's the man in every regard.

Is this the same Bill Mitchell who called Eugene Atget a hack of the highest order?

Interestingly, before coming to America one of Frank's jobs was preparing prints for reproduction for one of the best known Swiss landscape photographers of the time; large format B&W work, completely anal. I guessing he knows a thing or two about darkroom work and print quality.

"How very dated so many of the pictures seemed to be... a sad looking Negro in the back"

 

Seems to me your choice of words for some ethnic groups is very dated as well.

 

On a more constructive note I had the pleasure of seeing "The Americans" exhibit in person not long ago and the quality of the prints were first rate and not muddy or "flaky" (whatever that means). I found the work to be meaningful and important but I respect your opinions.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, this is the thing that photo.net thrives on. But looking back at work done 50 years ago <i>may</i> give a false impression of the achievements of these photographers. <p>Imagine how exciting it was working in a whole new genre. <p>

 

Just as a matter of interest Bill, what do you think of Henry Cartier Bresson's work?

fun fun fun.

<i>'Anybody doesnt like these pitchers dont like potry, see?'</i> <BR>from the Introduction