Bob Michaels
nobody special
His contact sheet indicates he was shooting multiple frames of people in the street, turned around and shot this one frame of people on the trolley, then resumed with people on the street. Certainly if he was completely aware of the potential of the trolley photo, he would have explored further with multiple frames.
charjohncarter
Veteran
I saw those contact sheets too. I was amazed at how messy they were: out of focus, subjects not level, and they looked like my first try. But they were marked to show which frames he wanted to use. I guess he took lots of photos and one would click for him. Probably that was his style.
Very different from William Eggleston. He only, it is said, took one shot of each subject.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
We went to Chicago in 2019 for family trip and were staying in not expensive hotel. We used public transit, subways lines, buses where we were in minority. Let me insure you, no segregation on the CTA in 2019.
On one of the previous trips to Chicago I went to exhibition about African Americans moving to Chicago in previous century. Stories and pictures were much more corresponding to the topic of today.
DHK
-
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Thank you for the map, we were staying, traveling by public transit, walking from the tip of the green zone, closer to red.
On one of the previous trips I walked with camera at major road in another green area on the top. It was shortly after I met one of the best street photogs of our time, who is Chicago based and member of RFF.
I`m sure he was aware of its potential as a good photo, but not to the extent of what he actually captured. Who cares? Part of being out there photographing is the element of luck... putting yourself in the position for luck to happen. It isn`t like he didn`t put in the work for this project... many of us make discoveries during the editing process. It is the beauty of photographing on the street and not in a studio.
giganova
Well-known
Depressing how relevant a 61 year old photo still is to the racial injustice in this country today.
But I find the critics thoughts a complete over-interpretation of the photo: the white shirt buttons form a cross? The boy "grasps the mullion with the entitled assurance of someone who knows his birthright", but the the black guy has "nothing to hold onto"?
But I find the critics thoughts a complete over-interpretation of the photo: the white shirt buttons form a cross? The boy "grasps the mullion with the entitled assurance of someone who knows his birthright", but the the black guy has "nothing to hold onto"?
Dan Daniel
Well-known
Public transit is no longer legally segregated but for some of us it possible to see the Frank image as a still representative of a social caste system in the US. I guess one way to phrase it is that literally the photo may be passe but metaphorically it still resonates.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
I have always believed the 3 essentials to good photographs are:
1) be there
2) have a camera
3) use it
The greatest gear in the world does nothing if you aren't there, don't have it with you, and don't use it. Simple but so often ignored.
Agreed Bob...completely.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
OK, I have to say it. I believed the critiquer, Arthur Lubow, played the "race card" at the opening to attract attention to his article. Effective in the current environment.
Lubow makes a major point about the first two windows be occupied by white people and the last two windows being black people, i.e. whites in the front of bus, blacks in the back. Absolutely normal 65 years ago back in 1955 when Frank make this photo. I do not contend this was proper but simply normal practice. Nothing culturally notable about it. Even to Robert Frank, who was Swiss, a country who also had racial discrimination. And Lubow's comment about the black people in the frame appearing despondent is not apparent to me but seems to be something he imagines.
I have been familiar with this photo for decades. Never assigned any significance to the racial placement of the passengers. And I have been involved with racial issues for many years. Besides, I am white with traces of sub-Saharan ancestry, married to a Cuban of mixed ancestry.
I rode municipal buses in the deep south in 1955 when this photo was made. Nothing of significance at that time about whites in front and blacks in back. Simply the way it was. Not right, just the way it was until Rosa Parks in Montgomery Alabama that same year.
Google "elliott erwitt segregated water fountains" if you want to see an effective portrayal of racial segregation during those times. Robert Frank was an excellent student capturing of American culture. If he wanted to portray racial segregation, he would have made a comparable photo.
I can accept most of Lubow's commentary as normal "critique speak". But assigning so much significance to the racial overtones seems grandstanding to me.
Lubow makes a major point about the first two windows be occupied by white people and the last two windows being black people, i.e. whites in the front of bus, blacks in the back. Absolutely normal 65 years ago back in 1955 when Frank make this photo. I do not contend this was proper but simply normal practice. Nothing culturally notable about it. Even to Robert Frank, who was Swiss, a country who also had racial discrimination. And Lubow's comment about the black people in the frame appearing despondent is not apparent to me but seems to be something he imagines.
I have been familiar with this photo for decades. Never assigned any significance to the racial placement of the passengers. And I have been involved with racial issues for many years. Besides, I am white with traces of sub-Saharan ancestry, married to a Cuban of mixed ancestry.
I rode municipal buses in the deep south in 1955 when this photo was made. Nothing of significance at that time about whites in front and blacks in back. Simply the way it was. Not right, just the way it was until Rosa Parks in Montgomery Alabama that same year.
Google "elliott erwitt segregated water fountains" if you want to see an effective portrayal of racial segregation during those times. Robert Frank was an excellent student capturing of American culture. If he wanted to portray racial segregation, he would have made a comparable photo.
I can accept most of Lubow's commentary as normal "critique speak". But assigning so much significance to the racial overtones seems grandstanding to me.
Michael Markey
Veteran
I have no knowledge of the Manchester Guardian, but the BBC is a long way from being Liberal/Left, from where I stand.
Well it must just be me then … plus a few million others .
Oh and a sizeable part of the younger end of the Iranian population apparently judging from what they were saying to me at a protest rally earlier in the year.
Leading BBC journalists have even gone on the record and said it themselves admitting its just the prevailing culture at the BBC.
I take your point though ,it depends where one stands as an individual on the issues of the day .
telenous
Well-known
It's been said many times that Lebow makes some tenuous interpretations and perhaps that's true. But to read the trolley picture as having no racial significance is lopsided in the opposite direction.
Frank was an immigrant in the US himself, a Jewish Swiss who knew firsthand persecution and marginalization in Europe. It would be exceedingly odd to deny him the aesthetic sensibility to perceive the racial injustice which for others was nondescrepit and commonplace. Perhaps Erwitt has another photo, a better one, but that's beside the point. Other photographs in "The Americans" also highlight the racial contradictions in the US at that time (the black woman holding a white baby, for example). I can't find a reference right now but I remember Frank has been on the record about empathizing with black people in America, as indeed with anyone in the underclass of outsiders. His favourite photo from the entire essay is the picture of the black couple in San Francisco, the man turning and looking at Frank (who, let's not forget, is white) with a scowl for his invasiveness.
Back to the trolley picture. Apart from the cover, it also appears in the book, right after the photo of the 4th of July. Frank was eager to become a naturalized citizen, so he no doubt knew that the 4th of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence and the proclamation that "all men are created equal". We also know that he sequenced the photos deliberately the way he did and that he has never changed that sequence in the many republications of the book. Why place the trolley picture right after the 4th of July one? Photographs can only show, but one may still draw inferences based on evidence. One way to go (the correct way, I believe) is that the trolley photo shows that what the declaration of independence promises has not been granted yet. Not to all, at least.
It'd be interesting to check whether contemporaries of Frank and critics at the time of the publication of the Americans picked up all these themes. I believe they did (they were at least as intelligent as we are), but some digging would be needed to confirm.
PS. For anyone interested, here's an older article in the NYT, commenting on Frank's own favourite photo from "The Americans": https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/robert-frank-telling-it-like-it-was/
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Michael Markey
Veteran
We`ll never know .
Not so long ago we could have asked him although I suspect even then we`d be no wiser.
I`m suspicious of attributing motives to pictures and although it can be great fun it can , in this particular case , be fraught .
Not so long ago we could have asked him although I suspect even then we`d be no wiser.
I`m suspicious of attributing motives to pictures and although it can be great fun it can , in this particular case , be fraught .
I get what you are saying Bob, but it is used as the cover photo on some versions of the book. I think it was exactly used because it showed racial segregation. It might have been the way it simply was, but that does not mean people from the outside would view it the same way...as normal.
It has been said that the tone of the book was perceived as derogatory to national ideals of the US upon release. Remember it was published in France first and the accompanying text from that version was deemed too un-american to be included in the US version.
jawarden
Well-known
This image has always hit me as a statement about race relations in America, and still does. Every article I've come across that highlights this image also discusses the subject of the image as racial inequality in America as seen by an outsider. In fact I don't know how it can be read as otherwise, but we all bring ourselves to the picture when looking at it. I've lost track of how many times I've been told something is in my pictures that I've simply not seen, or that my image is sad, happy, or "about" one thing or another, when I've intended the opposite.
As for the NYT, I really like the way they're using technology to walk us through pictures. The analysis of this image matches my interpretation of it early in the article, but I think the author overreaches for additional meaning (the buttons, the abstract art, the script W, etc) that I just don't see. But I'm fine with it; reading what others see in images is the point of articles like this, and makes me think.
Mephiloco
Well-known
... trolley?
I'll give Robert Frank a pass for not knowing that it's not called a trolley, but Arthur Lebow should've done some research instead of painting New Orleans with the broad brush of "American South during segregation."
I'll give Robert Frank a pass for not knowing that it's not called a trolley, but Arthur Lebow should've done some research instead of painting New Orleans with the broad brush of "American South during segregation."
Bob Michaels
nobody special
I believe that this year many people are viewing all history, including Frank's work, with a hard filter emphasizing the negatives of racial discrimination as a result of 2nd Q of 2020 events. This is true even in those cases where the authors were merely documenting that times history. The concept that Robert Frank chose the N.O. trolley photo for the cover of the The Americans because it displayed racial inequality seems to be something that has come up in the last two months, not in the 64 years since original publication.
There is also the implied corollary that if you do not jump on the current bandwagon and see everything historical in terms of racial inequality that you are not someone who cares about such.
This is not a new issue to me. It is one I addressed head on for almost ten years doing a documentary of a nearby Negro community, unique solely because it had remain unintegrated. I had much self questioning and discussion with both mentors and community members about documenting a Negro culture without reference to racial inequality. I repeated this mental exercise during years of photographing the people of the Mississippi Delta region. For the last ten years most of my work has been Cuban culture but devoid of any political overtones. Documenting culture without referencing inequality is something I have dealt with for many years.
There is also the implied corollary that if you do not jump on the current bandwagon and see everything historical in terms of racial inequality that you are not someone who cares about such.
This is not a new issue to me. It is one I addressed head on for almost ten years doing a documentary of a nearby Negro community, unique solely because it had remain unintegrated. I had much self questioning and discussion with both mentors and community members about documenting a Negro culture without reference to racial inequality. I repeated this mental exercise during years of photographing the people of the Mississippi Delta region. For the last ten years most of my work has been Cuban culture but devoid of any political overtones. Documenting culture without referencing inequality is something I have dealt with for many years.
jawarden
Well-known
I agree there is a tendency to see many things with a racial filter today, but certainly this particular image has been described and appreciated for its commentary on racial discrimination for a very long time. It is difficult to search online for any information about this image without finding the subject matter of racial inequality discussed, and I don't mean articles that were published in the last two months. It's always been there, which is why the work is so powerful.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
If Robert Frank chose this photo to illustrate the racial divisions of 1955 then he does not deserve the immense respect that I give him. That point could have been made much more eloquently by a photo of a Negro school, typical Negro housing, or any one of the jobs that only Negroes would do. Simply being required to sit in the back of a bus that served both races was quite lame.
Who is aware that Rosa Parks act of defiance on a bus in Montgomery Alabama had nothing to do with being required to sit in the back? It was a response to the driver mandating she give up her seat so that a white woman would not have to stand.
Who is aware that Rosa Parks act of defiance on a bus in Montgomery Alabama had nothing to do with being required to sit in the back? It was a response to the driver mandating she give up her seat so that a white woman would not have to stand.