sonwolf
Established
Looking In (Expanded Edition), the catalog from the National Gallery's show about Robert Frank's The Americans arrived today. This book is a 500 hundred page monster that weighs practically as much as the Oxford English Dictionary.
Most fascinating are several sections in the back of the book. Every proof sheet that contained an image from The Americans is fully reproduced. You see Frank's approaches and alternate versions of the classic images in the book. These are vintage contact sheets that contain Frank's editing marks. Beyond representing the images in the book, the contact sheets reveal highlighted images Frank seriously considered for the book but ultimately did not use.
The next section is just as fascinating. Three rows of images track the history of the book. The first row represents Frank's initial sequencing of the book in 1957, including images that were never published. The second row tracks the original 1958 & 59 French and American editions. The third row tracks all editions of the book, including last year's. Each image is represented full frame; various color rectangles superimposed over the image show the different cropping Frank used in all editions of the The Americans. Some variants are very different from each other, while many show very slight refinements made over the decades and subsequent editions of the book.
Looking In really challenges you as a photographer to consider the choices Frank made, why he made them, and if you would have done differently.
Remember, only the expanded edition has these special sections.
Most fascinating are several sections in the back of the book. Every proof sheet that contained an image from The Americans is fully reproduced. You see Frank's approaches and alternate versions of the classic images in the book. These are vintage contact sheets that contain Frank's editing marks. Beyond representing the images in the book, the contact sheets reveal highlighted images Frank seriously considered for the book but ultimately did not use.
The next section is just as fascinating. Three rows of images track the history of the book. The first row represents Frank's initial sequencing of the book in 1957, including images that were never published. The second row tracks the original 1958 & 59 French and American editions. The third row tracks all editions of the book, including last year's. Each image is represented full frame; various color rectangles superimposed over the image show the different cropping Frank used in all editions of the The Americans. Some variants are very different from each other, while many show very slight refinements made over the decades and subsequent editions of the book.
Looking In really challenges you as a photographer to consider the choices Frank made, why he made them, and if you would have done differently.
Remember, only the expanded edition has these special sections.
FA Limited
missing in action
nice, i should have read this earlier. i ordered the regular version but maybe i'll grab a looking in too.
marke
Well-known
Yeah, I pre-ordered the latest printing, but I'm going to get a copy of Looking In also.
sonwolf
Established
Don't feel bad if you ordered the current Steidl version of The Americans. The printing in the Steidl is noticeably superior to Looking In. You do get a reprinting of the first edition of The Americans inside Looking In, so on a historical level it is interesting.