What's so great about Franks 'The Americans'?

frank gave evans a handmade dummy of the americans, too. i never heard anything about them not liking each other.
 
It's probably hard to see Frank's work as unique or special now that his style and sequential lyricism are cemented into the photographic vocabulary.
 
Today I visited the MoMa in San Francisco.

The main exebition is about Daved Avedon. Despite being a monday it was very busy in at this exibition. I liked his work OK the only one that really struck me was an portrait of Bjork.

What I really liked was the exhibit of Robert Frank’s “The Americans” much more interesting than al these portraits. What was even more interesting is the fact that the contact sheets are on display as well!

You can see some of the contact sheets online here:
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2009/frank/index.shtm

Despite being in the middle of the various rooms no one was giving it any attention. Sure the large images on the wall are very interesting but I had already seen them in the books on display at the table outside. For me to see how he observed the scene and what else what out there and why he choose the final image was very inspirational.

I wish every photographer would do this so others can learn.
 
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Al Kaplan said:
Miami is very much a multi-racial/ethnic place but we still have problems relating to one another because of language differences and a constant stream of new immigrants with various cultural backgrounds. It's not the America that Frank traveled.

Growing up in New England in the forties and fifties you could tell what town somebody was from because of their accent, and I mean places twenty miles apart. Now most people speak "television English".
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Al, I was born in Miami in 1939. I am the youngest of 12 to a commercial fisherman from the Bahamas. I did not hear racism at home, but most of my peers taught it without notice. It took me a few years in the Navy to see that I was wrong.

The book made me uneasy at first and that was because it was a mirror on my youth, and not pleasant to look at. I always use Ozzie and Harriet as the perfect family that was not. But between the depression and then the war, times were tough even when they were supposed to be good.


I did date one of Bunny's models for a few months though.:)
 
For me, it didn't really hit until I visited the Robert Frank exhibit in The MET (NYC). Seeing the images on a large scale, and his original negatives, crop lines, and hand written letters made it all the more enjoyable and interesting!
 
i bought a copy of the Americans today.

As a Singaporean who has never set foot in America, i must confess i find it difficult to appreciate the significance of this work. Reading this thread has helped to some extent but i cannot say the pictures are very striking. i tend to see more in HCB, Atget and others, though i must say since i am not American my view must be limited
 
martin s said:
I have many photography books, many of which I like. I also have the seemingly obligatory copy of Robert Franks "The Americans" and I just bought "Looking In" as well. I'll try to keep the question simple, - I love Ginsberg and Kerouac - and I really do like photography, so why don't I like Frank? It's not dislike, either, it's just that I don't see why this book is so great. I do see that it was revolutionary in it's time, but is that it?

Please keep in mind, I'm really not trying to be an ass. Just curious.

martin
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He "invented" a new way of seeing.

That ultimately is what makes a photographer great. Just like HCB, Koudelka, Arbus etc.
 
leobloom said:
i bought a copy of the Americans today.

As a Singaporean who has never set foot in America, i must confess i find it difficult to appreciate the significance of this work. Reading this thread has helped to some extent but i cannot say the pictures are very striking. i tend to see more in HCB, Atget and others, though i must say since i am not American my view must be limited
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Well I'd never been to America when I first saw The Americans but that didn't stop me appreciating the book. HCB was more of formalist than Frank -- his pictures are 'prettier' -- although some of his early work is just as visceral (see 'Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Early Work' by Peter Galassi). As Kerouac says in the introduction to The Americans, these photographs are all about feeling: "That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral...". Personally, that's what I'm looking for in photography -- the feeling of reality, captured and transformed by the awareness of the photographer. But maybe you're looking for something else?
 
Why great?

Because modern world life and present human feelings are clearly reflected, without any other superficial worries like technics or any personal vanity. It's been more than half a century now, and the book remains fresh.

Cheers,

Juan
 
Tuolumne said:
I can understand that these guys broke ground. That makes them important from a social and cultural perspective. But any work that is so dependent on its social context to be appreciated can't be a great work of art.
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Even without the social context, there are some just plain old great compositions in The Americans book. These photographs can be enjoyed on many levels. Some of his images without people are my favorites.
 
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The photographs broke new ground and are historically important in a social context but that is not the main reason why they are important; they are important because they say something about the human condition that transcends the time and place in which they were made. Either they speak to you or they don't. No work of art can be rationally explained because if it could it wouldn't be necessary.
 
lawrence said:
The photographs broke new ground and are historically important in a social context but that is not the main reason why they are important; they are important because they say something about the human condition that transcends the time and place in which they were made. Either they speak to you or they don't. No work of art can be rationally explained because if it could it wouldn't be necessary.
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I totally agree. It's not about history, US, racism or anything... It's not about photography, it's about people, about experiencing being alive: it's art.

Cheers,

Juan
 
it is that, too, but i wouldn't ignore the importance of the subject matter, either. the book would not be quite as amazing if you did.
 
I'll never understand why people say they "like" or "dislike" any particular art. It either works for you or it doesn't. If it works for you, then you've gone beyond "like" and "dislike;" if it doesn't work for you, then any statement you would make about it is pointless, baseless speculation.
 
Bruce Springsteen (interview in Double Take):
I've also gotten a lot out of Robert Frank's photography in The Americans. I was twenty-four when I first saw the book--I think a friend had given me a copy--and the tone of the pictures, how he gave us a look at different kinds of people, got to me in some way. I've always wished I could write songs the way he takes pictures. I think I've got half a dozen copies of that book stashed around the house, and I pull one out once in a while to get a fresh look at the photographs.
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My own view: The Americans is the last book of pictures – photographs or otherwise – that I would keep, if I had to jettison all the rest. And that includes Kertesz and Strand, which is really saying something. Koudelka is for me the only one who comes close.
 
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akremer said:
I appreciate what the work meant at the time, but 'The Americans' does nothing for me visually.
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1. The book is a lot more important now than then. Now, it has influenced our world for decades and changed photography in some degree... And now it's seen as a universal piece of modern art, maybe the highest -as a book- in photography history. Then, some people just didn't like it for showing real parts of american life...

2. If by visually you mean "pictorialism" or "precise composition and framing" or "image quality", I understand it does nothing for you: the book isn't related to any superficial beauty of light or technical skill, but to the darkness of our souls and lives. Frank didn't care at all about photography, just as Bresson used to say about himself: they were not interested in photography but in life. That's why Frank easily and definitely stopped photographing very soon after those shots. He wanted to continue talking about life in other media: movies.

3. If you feel nothing after seeing the book, I mean, something deep, I'll tell you what one of my teachers told us once in class: "Take another look, or start worrying about your photography."

More about him: He was a skilled photographer and an artist. The book The Americans doesn't look like that because he used to shoot like that, but because he wanted that precise look for it... During the decade before The Americans shots, he worked as a fashion photographer for several magazines including Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. A couple of times much later, in the seventies and nineties, he did some photographs again, but not street shooting, and in a totally different style: creation, collage, a more artsy approach... Once he said -about his photographs- that when people saw his shots, he wanted to make them feel as when they feel the need to read once again a verse from a poem...

Cheers,

Juan
 
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