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Robert Frank, "The Americans" and the reading of photo books


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At a certain point in time my intention was to consign to history the famous Cartier-Bressons, Burris, Capas, Egglestons, Parrs, etc. and to re-focus on works of contemporary and less-known photographers.

The idea did not come from a bout of sudden iconoclastic fury but, once I could consider the landscape of established photographers as “consolidated”, this meant looking around and “ahead”. Despite this basic idea, “The Americans” had been there on the wishlist since quite a long time and finally I picked it up.

At a first glance it looked like one of the many collections of images American society of the 1950s that we know. But it is never wise to stop at first sight, better go beyond the impression generated by a single image and look for more in order to understand, to gather supplemental information to put the work into context. To know more, to supplement the informational limitation and inherent ambiguity of photographs by contextualising, lookingwith an open mind at what the photographer proposes, associates. Or hides from us.

In the mid-1950s, Robert Frank, a Swiss commercial photographer who immigrated to the US after World War II, receives a Guggenheim grant for a different kind of work than he usually does: to document America. He travels with his wife and two children, and tours the US for a couple of years, sneaks into bars, offices, parties, diners, enters the Ford factory, goes to funerals, photographs processions, famous people, strangers, is arrested, taken for a communist subversive. He spends three days in a cell in Arkansas, accused of espionage, another time a sheriff somewhere in the south orders him to leave town within the hour. He exposes 767 (who knows why not 770? or 760?) rolls of Kodak Tri-X and takes almost 28.000 photographs, of these 28.000 he initially selects a thousand and then 83 of the final choice.

Unable to get an American publisher, Frank publishes the first book in France in 1958, with Robert Delpire, the editor and publisher who was a friend of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Upon his return to the USA, Frank meets Jack Kerouac and shows him the photographs. Kerouac falls in love - particularly with the little lift operator - and writes an introduction to the 1959 American edition that perfectly accompanies the pictures. But despite Kerouac's introduction, which creates the association of Frank's work with the Beat Generation, the book is poorly received by critics and the public. MoMA refuses to sell it and Minor White calls it “a degradation of a nation”. Popular Photography' magazine talks of “a wart-covered picture of America by a joyless man” and describes the work as “a sad poem by a very sick person” and deriding the images as “meaningless blurriness, grainy, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and bad execution”.

At the time, America outwardly experienced post-war exaltation, growth, and opportunities to be seized: this book is a shock, even visually. For the first time a photographer disregards the formal setting by contrasting it with the marvellous and horrific reality. No limits are set to the representation of a reality that seems to have to be only crude, challenging the tradition of documentary photography that until then followed rules of transparency and objectification, and certainly excluded from its aesthetics any influence of the photographer's thoughts, emotions and points of view. Robert Frank does exactly the opposite and makes himself and what he thinks clearly visible. He ignores every formal compositional rule as established by Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans, seeing no reason to emulate them, and goes against the notion of photography as an easily comprehensible universal language, defying stylistic canons, technical perfection, composition, exposure and focus. He makes no effort to include aesthetic elements in his images; on the contrary, his shots appear casual, even sloppy. But he also demonstrates, here and there, that he is well versed in perfect photography.

If it is true that Dorothea Lange with her The Migrant Mother showed poverty and despair in a socially and economically depressed scenario, Frank on the other hand puts the viewer in front of the downsides and exclusions, the divisions and discriminations in a society, at a time when it was representing itself as brilliant and successful. With "The Americans", Frank highlights the contradiction of a certain reality with the hubris of a people who had won a war, were living in an economic boom and probably thought they could do anything, in a whirlwind of individual and collective achievement. An iconic depiction of post-World War II American society, of the moment of growth, in which Frank highlights alienation, anguish, loneliness, showing Americans simply as they were, without embellishing them and highlighting the contrast, denied but existing, between the dream and everyday life.

The Americans is structured in four sections, each beginning with a shot of an American flag and following the rhythm of movement and stasis, the presence and absence of people. Through thematic, formal and conceptual elements, it links the images, presenting a clear structure, an empathetic narrative and a precise order.

Jason Eskenazi, who at the time of the exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Americans was a museum warden at MOMA, carried out a research: he asked eight photographers to comment on the photograph from the book that had impressed them most. Each of these photographers linked the chosen photographs to their own direct and powerful experience of American society. Eskenazi's work is a metaphorical iconisation that calls to mind real people  encountered whose images impressed memory. This is what Robert Frank succeeds in doing: through his photographs he connects with the lived life, the experiences, the feelings of the viewer. And this applies with similar nuances to all the photographers Eskenazi has questioned. It is the union of real life, the glue of experiences.

The book dramatically changed the way Americans looked at themselves, as well as the way photographers looked through the viewfinder. It shows ordinary Americans leading ordinary lives, not necessarily the American dream of the 1950s.

What differentiates Robert Frank from Vivian Meier, from Garry Winogrand, from Walker Evans, from Dorothea Lange? Different eras, among others: Evans and Lange worked during and after the trauma of the Great Recession of 1929, Robert Frank documented the turbulent and contradictory society after the Second World War. In an interview in 2004, the photographer claimed that this type of photography was passé and obsolete. An ungenerous statement, as if he had put a definitive word, or rather, provided a definitive iconographic vision, on Americans. Perhaps due to the fact that he had become disinterested in documentation photography over time. The remaining photographs, along with his entire archive, were later sold by Frank in 1978 to cover his living expenses and to finance his filmmaking.

But the good old Swiss-American Robert is wrong when he claims “now there are too many photographs. It is overwhelming. A stream of images, why should we remember anything? It is too much, too many things to remember”. A banal criticism, as if it is the photographs that should be remembered and not what the photographs mean, represent and document. This is demonstrated by the long list of works on Americans and America: Lange and Evans, before him, on a depressed and bent society, Eugene W. Smith on the rural scenario  of the country doctor, Stephen Shore and Mark Cohen on urban and suburban society, Diane Arbus and the suffering of diversity, Gordon Parks on the Afro-American condition, Friedlander, Winogrand, the narrator of city life, Eggleston, the aesthete of colour who represents the banality of everyday life, Sternfeld, Meyerowitz - Winogrand's emulator and Frank's admirer -, up to Alec Soth, who narrates the hidden, rural America in an equally crude and direct manner.

Is this the only/last and final representation of American society? Certainly not.

Documentary photography will always be the medium to show “frames” of society at given moments, unique in their characteristics. And with the photographic book, these “frames” are placed into an entirely autonomous dimension. Of course, one can use narrative techniques common to other media, but photography, the photographic print and the photo book walk alone. And they are complex objects that require different levels of contextualisation: of the author and his work, of what they represent in a given context and its historical moment, and of the way in which the viewer, with his experience, interests and emotions, relates to said objects.

Thinking about it, however, it would seem - but needs to be verified - that there are no longer any books and photographic works that create a real upheaval in the world of photography. But perhaps that is just storytelling.

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He's certainly entitled to his view of America.  But calling the book, The Americans is presumptuous by its all inclusive name.  It seems that he categorizes all Americans as he sees them in a somewhat  negative light.  That's why many Americans, myself included, rejected his work.  He was a foreigner throwing stones at the people of his adopted country.  He saw only one side.

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Hi @je ne regrette rien, many thanks for your post!  Like you, I'm more interested in following developments in contemporary photography and visual arts than poring over the relative merits/contributions of 'old' (now dead) photographers. But I'm as much as much interested in modern photographers as artists who contributed to 'breaking barriers'. Robert Frank seems to be one of them.

 

 

5 hours ago, je ne regrette rien said:

At a certain point in time my intention was to consign to history the famous Cartier-Bressons, Burris, Capas, Egglestons, Parrs, etc. and to re-focus on works of contemporary and less-known photographers.

The idea did not come from a bout of sudden iconoclastic fury but, once I could consider the landscape of established photographers as “consolidated”, this meant looking around and “ahead”. Despite this basic idea, “The Americans” had been there on the wishlist since quite a long time and finally I picked it up.

At a first glance it looked like one of the many collections of images American society of the 1950s that we know. But it is never wise to stop at first sight, better go beyond the impression generated by a single image and look for more in order to understand, to gather supplemental information to put the work into context. To know more, to supplement the informational limitation and inherent ambiguity of photographs by contextualising, lookingwith an open mind at what the photographer proposes, associates. Or hides from us.

In the mid-1950s, Robert Frank, a Swiss commercial photographer who immigrated to the US after World War II, receives a Guggenheim grant for a different kind of work than he usually does: to document America. He travels with his wife and two children, and tours the US for a couple of years, sneaks into bars, offices, parties, diners, enters the Ford factory, goes to funerals, photographs processions, famous people, strangers, is arrested, taken for a communist subversive. He spends three days in a cell in Arkansas, accused of espionage, another time a sheriff somewhere in the south orders him to leave town within the hour. He exposes 767 (who knows why not 770? or 760?) rolls of Kodak Tri-X and takes almost 28.000 photographs, of these 28.000 he initially selects a thousand and then 83 of the final choice.

Unable to get an American publisher, Frank publishes the first book in France in 1958, with Robert Delpire, the editor and publisher who was a friend of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Upon his return to the USA, Frank meets Jack Kerouac and shows him the photographs. Kerouac falls in love - particularly with the little lift operator - and writes an introduction to the 1959 American edition that perfectly accompanies the pictures. But despite Kerouac's introduction, which creates the association of Frank's work with the Beat Generation, the book is poorly received by critics and the public. MoMA refuses to sell it and Minor White calls it “a degradation of a nation”. Popular Photography' magazine talks of “a wart-covered picture of America by a joyless man” and describes the work as “a sad poem by a very sick person” and deriding the images as “meaningless blurriness, grainy, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and bad execution”.

At the time, America outwardly experienced post-war exaltation, growth, and opportunities to be seized: this book is a shock, even visually. For the first time a photographer disregards the formal setting by contrasting it with the marvellous and horrific reality. No limits are set to the representation of a reality that seems to have to be only crude, challenging the tradition of documentary photography that until then followed rules of transparency and objectification, and certainly excluded from its aesthetics any influence of the photographer's thoughts, emotions and points of view. Robert Frank does exactly the opposite and makes himself and what he thinks clearly visible. He ignores every formal compositional rule as established by Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans, seeing no reason to emulate them, and goes against the notion of photography as an easily comprehensible universal language, defying stylistic canons, technical perfection, composition, exposure and focus. He makes no effort to include aesthetic elements in his images; on the contrary, his shots appear casual, even sloppy. But he also demonstrates, here and there, that he is well versed in perfect photography.

If it is true that Dorothea Lange with her The Migrant Mother showed poverty and despair in a socially and economically depressed scenario, Frank on the other hand puts the viewer in front of the downsides and exclusions, the divisions and discriminations in a society, at a time when it was representing itself as brilliant and successful. With "The Americans", Frank highlights the contradiction of a certain reality with the hubris of a people who had won a war, were living in an economic boom and probably thought they could do anything, in a whirlwind of individual and collective achievement. An iconic depiction of post-World War II American society, of the moment of growth, in which Frank highlights alienation, anguish, loneliness, showing Americans simply as they were, without embellishing them and highlighting the contrast, denied but existing, between the dream and everyday life.

The Americans is structured in four sections, each beginning with a shot of an American flag and following the rhythm of movement and stasis, the presence and absence of people. Through thematic, formal and conceptual elements, it links the images, presenting a clear structure, an empathetic narrative and a precise order.

Jason Eskenazi, who at the time of the exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Americans was a museum warden at MOMA, carried out a research: he asked eight photographers to comment on the photograph from the book that had impressed them most. Each of these photographers linked the chosen photographs to their own direct and powerful experience of American society. Eskenazi's work is a metaphorical iconisation that calls to mind real people  encountered whose images impressed memory. This is what Robert Frank succeeds in doing: through his photographs he connects with the lived life, the experiences, the feelings of the viewer. And this applies with similar nuances to all the photographers Eskenazi has questioned. It is the union of real life, the glue of experiences.

The book dramatically changed the way Americans looked at themselves, as well as the way photographers looked through the viewfinder. It shows ordinary Americans leading ordinary lives, not necessarily the American dream of the 1950s.

What differentiates Robert Frank from Vivian Meier, from Garry Winogrand, from Walker Evans, from Dorothea Lange? Different eras, among others: Evans and Lange worked during and after the trauma of the Great Recession of 1929, Robert Frank documented the turbulent and contradictory society after the Second World War. In an interview in 2004, the photographer claimed that this type of photography was passé and obsolete. An ungenerous statement, as if he had put a definitive word, or rather, provided a definitive iconographic vision, on Americans. Perhaps due to the fact that he had become disinterested in documentation photography over time. The remaining photographs, along with his entire archive, were later sold by Frank in 1978 to cover his living expenses and to finance his filmmaking.

But the good old Swiss-American Robert is wrong when he claims “now there are too many photographs. It is overwhelming. A stream of images, why should we remember anything? It is too much, too many things to remember”. A banal criticism, as if it is the photographs that should be remembered and not what the photographs mean, represent and document. This is demonstrated by the long list of works on Americans and America: Lange and Evans, before him, on a depressed and bent society, Eugene W. Smith on the rural scenario  of the country doctor, Stephen Shore and Mark Cohen on urban and suburban society, Diane Arbus and the suffering of diversity, Gordon Parks on the Afro-American condition, Friedlander, Winogrand, the narrator of city life, Eggleston, the aesthete of colour who represents the banality of everyday life, Sternfeld, Meyerowitz - Winogrand's emulator and Frank's admirer -, up to Alec Soth, who narrates the hidden, rural America in an equally crude and direct manner.

Is this the only/last and final representation of American society? Certainly not.

Documentary photography will always be the medium to show “frames” of society at given moments, unique in their characteristics. And with the photographic book, these “frames” are placed into an entirely autonomous dimension. Of course, one can use narrative techniques common to other media, but photography, the photographic print and the photo book walk alone. And they are complex objects that require different levels of contextualisation: of the author and his work, of what they represent in a given context and its historical moment, and of the way in which the viewer, with his experience, interests and emotions, relates to said objects.

Thinking about it, however, it would seem - but needs to be verified - that there are no longer any books and photographic works that create a real upheaval in the world of photography. But perhaps that is just storytelling.

 

 

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I'd call the supposed "negative light" Frank showed Americans in a realistic one. Many of Frank's critics preferred an Ozzie and Harriet styled view of America, one that averted its eye from poverty, from iconization, from racial inequities. Those who criticized Frank as a foreigner daring to portray such an America were at the core of a twisted nationalism, the kind at the foundation of McCarthyism, which pervaded the decade in which Frank took these photos and published this book. It is a badge of honor to have been criticized thusly for telling and showing important truths about America that were otherwise being kept hidden, a badge of honor to have been rejected by nationalists and their ilk for daring to be a "foreigner" with a voice, for having the temerity to hold up a mirror.

The unfairness of criticizing a book with such a wealth of imagery for its title, claiming its title somehow refers to all Americans rather than to a side of America not often addressed, is hard to calculate. Perhaps along with the cliché about a picture being worth a thousand words, we might remember the one about a book and its cover.

As for Frank being criticized for a lack of esthetics, "esthetics" means different things. As studies in traditional notions of beauty, sure these photos might not quite fit that bill. Instead, what Frank did was establish a new photographic and personal esthetic, in the sense that "esthetic" relates to the nature of art and the ideas and structures with which art is interpreted and accepted.

The power of this as a book and as a series and as a study, its historical value, its influence, its politics, the way it breaks new ground is matched only by the power of feeling each photograph itself. Each is both photo and document, both art and craft on its own terms. Each strikes me as do my favorite family scrapbook photos. Each feels like its mine.

 

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1 hour ago, samstevens said:

I'd call the supposed "negative light" Frank showed Americans in a realistic one.

His selective negative vision  is reflective of a chosen bitter attitude that does not deserve credit of acknowledgement.

Contrast with "migrant mother" which is founded on empathy. 

Furthermore, he did it with other people's money. Parasitic self pity.

Also contrast with Jay Maisel's work which celebrates joy of vision.

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I have never seen the book , so I cannot comment with any knowledge at all , but if he saw and photographed it , was it not there , and were his photographic subjects not in North America ?????.

Selectivity and all that , it happens everywhere all the time.

I am not trying to be facetious here.

 

 

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7 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

He saw only one side.

He saw other possible sides other than the mainstream one. There were definitely many sides to the representation of the American society of the 1950's.

4 hours ago, Wayne Melia said:

His selective negative vision  is reflective of a chosen bitter attitude that does not deserve credit of acknowledgement.

Contrast with "migrant mother" which is founded on empathy. 

Furthermore, he did it with other people's money. Parasitic self pity.

Also contrast with Jay Maisel's work which celebrates joy of vision.

The book deserves a more careful and contextualised reading.

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6 hours ago, Wayne Melia said:

His selective negative vision  is reflective of a chosen bitter attitude that does not deserve credit of acknowledgement.

“Bitter” is one interpretation. But not sure why photographically-conveyed bitterness wouldn’t deserve credit or acknowledgment. I’ve experienced bitterness and would be satisfied to convey that effectively. 

6 hours ago, Wayne Melia said:

Contrast with "migrant mother" which is founded on empathy.

Worth looking up Florence Thompson, the woman pictured in Migrant Mother, about this. Taking nothing away from Dorothea Lange’s impactful photograph, of course. 

6 hours ago, Wayne Melia said:

Furthermore, he did it with other people's money.

Most documentary photographers and lots of others had backing. 

6 hours ago, Wayne Melia said:

Also contrast with Jay Maisel's work which celebrates joy of vision.

Yes. Maisel’s and Frank’s visions differed. Two individuals. 

5 hours ago, za33photo said:

if he saw and photographed it , was it not there

Yes. But some folks have a strong will toward denial and simply don’t want to be shown things that undermine their more comfortable, even if glossed, world view. 

5 hours ago, za33photo said:

Selectivity and all that , it happens everywhere all the time.

Good point. It does. Frank (and Kerouac) were, in part, questioning and resisting the kind of selectivity they’d witnessed when it came to documenting and describing American life. They offered a somewhat different selection, unwelcome by those invested in what had been mistakenly passing as representative. 

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Calling the book "The Americans" is all encompassing.  He purports to know America and Americans.  That's very presumptuous of an immigrant who just arrived here.  No one doubts that there's a seedy side of America as there is of all countries.  But that's a very limited view.  There are always nihilists around who want to denigrate the country, who can never find any good in it. Frank gave them some ammunition. 

I may be wrong on this, but I believe his publisher picked the title because it would sell better.   If that's true, then I'd cut him some slack.  But it would have been helpful if he selected a few more positive shots out of the 20,000 he took to go into the book. 

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21 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

He's certainly entitled to his view of America.  But calling the book, The Americans is presumptuous by its all inclusive name.  It seems that he categorizes all Americans as he sees them in a somewhat  negative light.  That's why many Americans, myself included, rejected his work.  He was a foreigner throwing stones at the people of his adopted country.  He saw only one side.

 

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This thread prompted me to look up some info on Robert Frank. TBH, I've never dipped in to Robert Frank's 'The Americans' until now (via Internet articles, the MoMA and long YouTube videos).

I read/heard that he took some 20.000 photos during his road trip through the US, of which just 83 photos were selected for his book. From what I've read/watched, Frank never pretended to 'know' or represent (all) 'Americans'' or had any intention (or agenda) to represent the 'seedy side' of the US. As a European, he was an outsider looking in to the US. I see his title 'The Americans' as a reflection of what he came across during his road trip

From what I've read/watched/seen he was in essence a 'street photographer' who took photos of anything that he (as an observer) found interesting while travelling. The non-discriminatory scope of his photos demonstrate this.

His 'street photography' style was at the time IMHO innovative. He just photographed whatever he happened to come across. In focus or not.

Browsing through Franks' photos I personally don't see any bias between the photos that he took. Not in terms of color, socio-economic status or gender. Hre just took photos that he found interesting.

His title 'The Americans' reflects IMHO his personal reflections on the people he met and the situations he encountered during his road trip rather than 'an all encompassing view'.

My personal view is that we should celebrate Frank's enormous contribution to street photography. And celebrate his wonderful photos in terms of both composition and timing.

 

 

2 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

Calling the book "The Americans" is all encompassing.  He purports to know America and Americans.  That's very presumptuous of an immigrant who just arrived here.  No one doubts that there's a seedy side of America as there is of all countries.  But that's a very limited view.  There are always nihilists around who want to denigrate the country, who can never find any good in it. Frank gave them some ammunition. 

I may be wrong on this, but I believe his publisher picked the title because it would sell better.   If that's true, then I'd cut him some slack.  But it would have been helpful if he selected a few more positive shots out of the 20,000 he took to go into the book. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

Calling the book "The Americans" is all encompassing. 

No. You’re choosing to read it as all-encompassing.

The Americans is a title in the tradition of titles such as James Michener’s Hawaii, Julius Epstein’s and Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, Henry James’s The Bostonians, Desmond Decker’s and Leslie Kong’s The Israelites, Marshall Brickman’s and Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Book, song, and movie titles set a stage. They don’t purport to define a people.

Consider Frank’s inspiring immigrant story, which has been repeated millions of times in America by people coming from all kinds of places and circumstances. Then consider that what might be “presumptuous” is to tell this “foreigner” what to photograph and what he should and shouldn’t portray of his new, free home.

Frank was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the son of Rosa (Zucker) and Hermann Frank. His family was Jewish. Robert states in Gerald Fox's 2004 documentary Leaving Home, Coming Home that his mother, Rosa, had a Swiss passport, while his father, Hermann originating from Frankfurt, Germany had become stateless after losing his German citizenship as a Jew. They had to apply for the Swiss citizenship of Robert and his older brother, Manfred. Though Frank and his family remained safe in Switzerland during World War II, the threat of Nazism nonetheless affected his understanding of oppression. He turned to photography, in part as a means to escape the confines of his business-oriented family and home, and trained under a few photographers and graphic designers before he created his first hand-made book of photographs, 40 Fotos, in 1946. Frank emigrated to the United States in 1947, and secured a job in New York City as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar.”

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1 hour ago, mikemorrellNL said:

His 'street photography' style was at the time IMHO innovative. He just photographed whatever he happened to come across. In focus or not.

I would hesitate to use the idea of “street photography style”. Frank, although a fashion photographer (Joel Meyerowitz met him on the occasion of a shooting) became a real documentarist, being able to build stories into his pictures.

3 hours ago, AlanKlein said:

He purports to know America and Americans.  That's very presumptuous of an immigrant who just arrived here.  No one doubts that there's a seedy side of America as there is of all countries.  But that's a very limited view.  There are always nihilists around who want to denigrate the country, who can never find any good in it.

The analysis intended to be much more subtle. There are many “truths” when portraying a society and a people. Frank proposed his own perspectives and opinions.

Questionable, but basically not untrue at all.

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Honestly, even having only seen part of the story of his photos in this book, The Americans with a quick few minutes' worth of internet "sleuthing"... it sure seems to me that Mr Frank immersed himself pretty deeply into "America" and captured real images of real people in real life doing real things. I absolutely see nothing negative about any of these photos (again- not having seen them all), instead what I see is a personal, up close look at every day, common & working class reality, circa post WWII, 1950 ish. I would love to take such photos as these.  

OK so he attained a Guggebheim Grant, so bleepin what. Is there really, seriously, anyone among us now who would refuse such a gift? 

AND...

With so many photos shot during however many years' travel over, through, up, down, across, and back, one might think there would have been multiple volumes that would give us a deeper sense of what he was doing, rather than encapsulating the whole of his body of work- 20,000 images, into a single voliume containing a mere 80 some-odd photos.  

The National Gallery has a great web page dedicated to Robert Frank's photography. Lots of images and links and info HERE 

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8 hours ago, samstevens said:

No. You’re choosing to read it as all-encompassing.

The Americans is a title in the tradition of titles such as James Michener’s Hawaii, Julius Epstein’s and Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, Henry James’s The Bostonians, Desmond Decker’s and Leslie Kong’s The Israelites, Marshall Brickman’s and Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Book, song, and movie titles set a stage. They don’t purport to define a people.

Consider Frank’s inspiring immigrant story, which has been repeated millions of times in America by people coming from all kinds of places and circumstances. Then consider that what might be “presumptuous” is to tell this “foreigner” what to photograph and what he should and shouldn’t portray of his new, free home.

Frank was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the son of Rosa (Zucker) and Hermann Frank. His family was Jewish. Robert states in Gerald Fox's 2004 documentary Leaving Home, Coming Home that his mother, Rosa, had a Swiss passport, while his father, Hermann originating from Frankfurt, Germany had become stateless after losing his German citizenship as a Jew. They had to apply for the Swiss citizenship of Robert and his older brother, Manfred. Though Frank and his family remained safe in Switzerland during World War II, the threat of Nazism nonetheless affected his understanding of oppression. He turned to photography, in part as a means to escape the confines of his business-oriented family and home, and trained under a few photographers and graphic designers before he created his first hand-made book of photographs, 40 Fotos, in 1946. Frank emigrated to the United States in 1947, and secured a job in New York City as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar.”

Frank;s book is documentary.  Most if not all of the books you mentioned are fiction, novels.  

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7 hours ago, je ne regrette rien said:

I would hesitate to use the idea of “street photography style”. Frank, although a fashion photographer (Joel Meyerowitz met him on the occasion of a shooting) became a real documentarist, being able to build stories into his pictures.

The analysis intended to be much more subtle. There are many “truths” when portraying a society and a people. Frank proposed his own perspectives and opinions.

Questionable, but basically not untrue at all.

My problem mainly is with the title.  It purports to be a documentary of The Americans.  If he titled it Some Americans, I wouldn't have a problem. 

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7 minutes ago, AlanKlein said:

Frank;s book is documentary.  Most if not all of the books you mentioned are fiction, novels.  

That’s your argument? The fact is, you’ve continued to call a Jewish immigrant who fled Europe in the 40s a “foreigner” and have made about as silly an issue of a title as has ever been made. I won’t indulge this any longer. It’s not fair to Frank, his photos, or those reading. 

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Richochetrider , thanks for the link , I had a very quick look.

I do not really understand why some people get upset at Frank's photo's.

I think that he captured the essence of that time frame very well.

Very similar scenes and people were to be seen just about all over the World in that time frame.

The World , (as it is today) , was a harsh and unforgiving place in those times.

People are really not all that different.

 

 

 

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12 hours ago, samstevens said:

That’s your argument? The fact is, you’ve continued to call a Jewish immigrant who fled Europe in the 40s a “foreigner” and have made about as silly an issue of a title as has ever been made. I won’t indulge this any longer. It’s not fair to Frank, his photos, or those reading. 

He was a foreigner.  He was a short time in the country and unfamiliar with American customs and social institutions.  So maybe he really didn't understand American culture well enough as a newcomer to the country to call a book The Americans.   It was very presumptuous.  You're trying to make me sound prejudiced which is just silly.  I'm Jewish too and know all about Jews who fled Europe in the 1940's. It's got nothing to do with that. You're attacking me rather than my ideas playing the "guilt by association" card.  That's uncalled for.  

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Alan your argument Re the title, THE Americans vs SOME does come off as straight semantics. No one thing represents all of anything, so, just outside looking in at that comment, and not knowing you personally, it has the feel of a weak argument. Not to discount your obviously strong feelings on the matter and I haven’t read all of what you’ve written in this thread so maybe I need to go back and do that.  
 

Whatever Mr Frank understood (or not), about our country, he must have gone deep. Looking at the map of his travels, he first went from NYC to Michigan (and back?), then looped down through the South and made his way across the southern tier to California where he stayed a while, before coming back pretty much straight east across the central tier of the U.S. He must have hit a few cities along his way but he spent a LOT of time- perhaps the vast bulk of his time- in the rural USA. He clearly spent at least some time everywhere he went. Looking further at his photography, via the sidebars etc in the National Gallery (linked above) page, all of what I saw had a similar style and look to it. 

I’m unsure whether what he was doing was particularly idiosyncratic, but he did qualify for- and receive grants for his project. Assuming Guggenheim or others don’t randomly throw money away, the project was clearly seen (by somebody) to have some merit. I’m of the opinion that people don’t necessarily need to fully understand or know well a subject to capture it- pretty sure we all know that a photo is a shot of a moment in time that can be shaped whichever way the shooter chooses. 

All that said, he seems to have had a knack for getting into places and getting in front of or among real people doing real things. for a stranger that nobody knows to have inserted himself into intimate gatherings such as funerals… (etc) seems to me like it would take some solid people skills to pull that off. 
 

In conclusion, I’m fully aware that nobody is going to change anyones opinion on the internet. Not my intent. I’m just saying I like what I’ve seen of his work and wish I could take similar photos of people. His book could be titled in any way and it wouldn’t matter. The photos resonate with me and seem to come from ground level. 

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Wanted to add something but felt it would get lost if I edit the above comments. 
 

The time during which he did the work for the book The Americans was a time of major changes taking place in the U.S. and around the world. We particularly were moving further and permanently away from a largely rural economy & culture in a huge paradigm shift, felt pretty much across the board - especially with the advent of the “American” *** Middle Class. 
 

While I’m uncertain how or if this was  reflected in or is critical to the photos presented, I felt it worth a mention. 
 

*** I don’t especially like calling the United States “America”- since Canada, and all of Central & South America are also “American” countries, but hey it is what it is. 🙂 

Edited by Ricochetrider
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4 minutes ago, normanskiromanoff said:

I appreciate The Americans (aren’t I magnanimous) but there’s no doubt the title is provocative. 

Brother obviously you’re not alone in this so could you please explain how you see it as so? That particular argument escapes me somehow and I’d like to further understand.

Thanks!

Tom

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IT'S THE PHOTOGRAPH

When I look at Frank's photos—putting aside permissions about what people are allowed to photograph depending on where they were born, and putting aside allowing a title to distract me from the visual presentation, and putting aside glossy and fake notions of patriotism demanding particular portrayals of a supposedly great nation, I'm stuck right there, with the photos. Glad to meet you ...

So, in the photo I linked to, I'm first drawn to the voyeurism inherent in photography and made obvious by shooting into someone's window. I'm then drawn to the seemingly ironic intimacy that humbles that voyeurism, making me feel both at home peering into these dwellings but still aware of my own outsider status to whatever it is these folks's world might be. Like so many of my neighbors here in the American town in which I live, there are so many individual, private stories going on under the banner of a common home country, adopted or native. That flag, often a symbol of pride and might, can also obscure the individual who can become dwarfed or even faceless in the shadows of its "glory". Yes, there are shadows, and they can be tough, disheartening, threatening, unwelcome. They're also the result of light. There may well be a brick wall in my face. I run into them on all my travels. But each of those brick walls houses a story, often a bit obscured, and there's a quiet honesty even in that obscurity. So the brick wall can be confrontational but it's softened by the view beyond and within. I see both symmetry and asymmetry simultaneously. The experience of The Americans seems to provide a known and experienced balance and even comfort while also keeping me just off kilter enough to wonder. What I see in Frank's pictures makes me wonder, makes me curious, sometimes saddens and sometimes uplifts me. The uplift is not often the uplift of, say, Hollywood glamour or Saturday Evening Post optimism. Within many of the photos and viewing the book as a poem in itself, I experience the rhythm and rhythms of life, via the content, via the compositions, via the geometries and abstractions, via the symbols and gestures and juxtapositions.

The rest is a lot of dawg gone noise.

Edited by samstevens
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"You talkin' to me?"

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