Fifty Years

[Al Kaplan]

In 1959 The Americans was published. The text was by Jack Kerouac, a well respected if slightly avante garde writer for the times, but the book was considered a photo book because it was really a photo essay by Robert Frank. Its audience wasn't there to read Kerouac, they were there to look at the photographs. The photography magazines praised the book and the photographer. Two generations ago young photographers aspired to be able to produce images like that.

It was all in black and white, available light, hand held camera, no fancy wide angle lenses or long telephotos, just good images of everyday people doing whatever they were doing. Many of the pictures were grainy and had blocked up highlights along with inky shadows, a result of pushing the films of the day. A majority of the pictures aren't sharp. Missed focus? Less corrected lenses than we have today? Motion of the subjects? Inability of Robert to hold the camera steady enough at slow speeds in dim light? Maybe a combination of them, but it didn't matter to him. It didn't matter to Jack, It didn't matter to the publisher or the reviewers or to all the people who bought the book.

It's all about the subjects, The Americans, the way they were depicted with honor and sensitivity. The way the compositions interplayed with the lighting is superb. No doubt his cameras had scratches and dents by the time he completed the project. I doubt that it ever entered his mind. He was a photographer.

It's now fifty years later. Go take some pictures! That's what your cameras are for. Be a photographer.

...and I'd like to thank Al Wessel for giving me that book in 1972. Thanks, Al.

 

[Rob-F]

Well said, Al. Thanks!

 

[Keith]

Excellent post Al ... I sense a slight frustration for you at times when you see people here becoming more enamored with the cameras and lenses they own than what they are actually capable of producing. With your own history that's not surprising!

What is vital for me and I'm sure a lot of others is that you are here on this forum for us to agree with, disagree with, take heed from or ignore ... I guess that's up to the individual. I personally would be devestated not to be able to find your name in the member's list at some future point.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Thanks guys. I just had to get it off my chest. I wonder how many people here have ever heard of the book. We're two generations away from the days of Vietnam and Life Magazine, and three or more from the B&W coverage of Korea and WW-II. Galleries and museums used to show photographs shot for reasons other than art, and collectors bought them then and still do now. Having brass showing through black paint or having scratches in the chrome was a mark of honor. It was embarrasing to be seen with a shiny new camera, a sign that you weren't really a photographer. But I'm preaching to the choir here. The just rest tune it out.

 

[Tom A]

Al. I agree with you on "The Americans". If there ever was a photo essay that gave us an idea what could be done, it is it. "The Decisive Moment" is a selection of individual photos over a long period of time - The Americans is an essay.
When it was first published in France in 1958 (no US publishers was interested) it meet with some measure of outrage by the critics in the US. It did not conform to the "pretty" pictures that was the norm at the time.
I have a 1971 copy of it (probably the same as yours Al) and never get tired of looking at it. It is placed with Ian Berry's "The English" and Rene Burri's "Die Deutschen" and Tony Ray Jones "A day off" as capsules of a time gone past.
For those of us who still remembers the 50's and the 60's (dimly) - The Americans was what we all wanted to do. A seminal work. no restrictions on content and at our own pace.
When we lived in Toronto in the early 80's - Robert Frank gave a lecture about photography. Someone in the audience asked about "The Americans" and the preservation of the negatives. Robert picked up a shoebox from the floor and showed the negatives, all loosely thrown into the box, no file pages - just loose negatives!!!!

 

[35mmdelux]

Thanks, AL. You nailed it.

PS: I dont think Frank took a bag of lenses along either.

 

[raid]

Al,

I will try to find a copy of this book.

I am a prolific photographer, who happens to own more than one camera and lens. This is something that I will continue as long as possible.

 

[gb hill]

Al, what a story! You are not only one heck of a photographer, but a master story teller. Who wouldn't want to sit down with Al over a cup of coffee down at Starbucks? I was born in 59 & if I had never taken up photography as a hobby I probably would of never heard of Franks & his work. This speaks shame for how American classrooms were/are taught.

 

[raid]

Yes, Al is quite a guy to meet. I will one day meet Al in person. Right Al?

 

[Keith]

Yes, Al is quite a guy to meet. I will one day meet Al in person. Right Al?

One day Al will be sitting quietly on his verandah with a coffee and a cigarette and a tour bus will pull up out the front ... sixty or so RFFers will spill out and his life will never be the same again! 😛

 

[marke]

One day Al will be sitting quietly on his verandah with a coffee and a cigarette and a tour bus will pull up out the front ... sixty or so RFFers will spill out and his life will never be the same again! 😛

Can I wear my "Al" T-shirt for that tour? 😀

Seriously, I agree with you, Al. I never had the original, but snatched up on a new copy when it was recently re-printed.

 

[40oz]

I was under the impression the reason "The Americans" was published in France was because it was an indictment of American society. Is this belief incorrect? Has the meaning behind the work changed over time, or is the interpretation been dependent on the viewer?

I'm not saying I think the book is an indictment, I have found what I've seen of it to be what Mr. Kaplan has called it. It's just that in an effort to find out more, I've stumbled on some rather surprising opinions as to its intent.

*Edit: It appears with further research just now that the French edition did include text concerning American culture and society, while the first American edition included only an intro by Kerouac and captions by Frank. The photographs themselves can be viewed as a window showing what is there, good or bad or indifferent, the way I see it, with the viewer finding their own meaning/message.

 

[gb hill]

Can I wear my "Al" T-shirt for that tour? 😀

Seriously, I agree with you, Al. I never had the original, but snatched up on a new copy when it was recently re-printed.

Let's plan for a trip to Miami this spring/summer. Maybe I'll hop an Amtrak & photograph the trip. I'll wear my Silver is Better T shirt. Better start saving my pennies.😀

 

[RayPA]

In 1959 The Americans was published. The text was by Jack Kerouac, a well respected if slightly avante garde writer for the times, but the book was considered a photo book because it was really a photo essay by Robert Frank. Its audience wasn't there to read Kerouac, they were there to look at the photographs. The photography magazines praised the book and the photographer. Two generations ago young photographers aspired to be able to produce images like that.

It was all in black and white, available light, hand held camera, no fancy wide angle lenses or long telephotos, just good images of everyday people doing whatever they were doing. Many of the pictures were grainy and had blocked up highlights along with inky shadows, a result of pushing the films of the day. A majority of the pictures aren't sharp. Missed focus? Less corrected lenses than we have today? Motion of the subjects? Inability of Robert to hold the camera steady enough at slow speeds in dim light? Maybe a combination of them, but it didn't matter to him. It didn't matter to Jack, It didn't matter to the publisher or the reviewers or to all the people who bought the book.

It's all about the subjects, The Americans, the way they were depicted with honor and sensitivity. The way the compositions interplayed with the lighting is superb. No doubt his cameras had scratches and dents by the time he completed the project. I doubt that it ever entered his mind. He was a photographer.

It's now fifty years later. Go take some pictures! That's what your cameras are for. Be a photographer.

...and I'd like to thank Al Wessel for giving me that book in 1972. Thanks, Al.

Thanks guys. I just had to get it off my chest. I wonder how many people here have ever heard of the book. We're two generations away from the days of Vietnam and Life Magazine, and three or more from the B&W coverage of Korea and WW-II. Galleries and museums used to show photographs shot for reasons other than art, and collectors bought them then and still do now. Having brass showing through black paint or having scratches in the chrome was a mark of honor. It was embarrasing to be seen with a shiny new camera, a sign that you weren't really a photographer. But I'm preaching to the choir here. The just rest tune it out.

Interesting read/rant on Americans. I was right with you until you started mentioning scratched and dented cameras. I never thought to use Americans as an ugly stick, to wrap it around a rant, or to use it to soapbox on brassed cameras and the state of photography and the current generation of photographers. But hey, it's your read! 🙂

.

 

[Keith]

Fairly obviously Al gets pretty peeved with people posting about how to replace a missing chip of vulcanite ... or what style/colour case to get for their new M7/M8 or whatever. I myself have been guilty of this behaviour which is related to unbridled enthusiasm for your hobby and it is hard to avoid because lets face ... cameras are beautiful things.

The fact that he chose to wrap the cold hard facts up in a little subtafuge says a lot about Al ... others on this forum have been downright unpleasant and scathingly rude on exactly the same subject.

Realising that a camera is just a camera and needs to be used as such and abused if necessary is a bitter pill to swallow for some ... coating the pill with a little interesting embelishment in the form of 'The Americans' was fine for me!

 

[George S.]

Hey guys, The Americans was re-issued this past May to commemorate it's 50th anniversary and is available from Amazon.com for around $25. I got a copy this past summer.

I think it's certainly kind of neat as a time capsule of what we were 50 years ago, but I miss the point I guess with regard to its being this great tome when it first came out. Just about every shot is underexposed, most are grainy. I expected better. I guess I miss the whole point. Anyway, I think my German Shepherd puppy agreed with me, he ate the entire cover off of it.

 

[35mmdelux]

George, Frank's work was breakthrough in the 1950s, documenting American sub-culture. It had an impact on me when I first saw it in 1990, something akin to HC-B. Whether it was first printed in France doesnt matter anymore than Jimi Hendrix acceptance in England before the USA.

How many monologues have this kind of impact? HC-B, Walker Evans, Salgado, Diane Arbus?

 

[Nh3]

I was under the impression the reason "The Americans" was published in France was because it was an indictment of American society. Is this belief incorrect?

Absolutely, here is the master himself speaking briefly about The Americans - click on the image:

 

[Tom A]

Somewhere I have an essay "New York - Nova Scotia" by Frank. were he describes the trip. He did have a bag of cameras! Several IIIf's and a handful of lenses (35/50/90) and a tripod. All in all he shot something like 600 rolls for the book. He had been given a Guggenheim grant for the project. None of this is important - what is important is the result. One should also remember that Frank was an "alien" - from Switzerland and he did look at the USA with a different perspective. What the "natives" took for granted, somehow was strange and foreign to him. Oh, he also got arrested as a "suspicious" character somewhere in the South.

 

[35mmdelux]

Interesting details. Thanks, Tom.

Paul