I’ve chosen Robert Frank’s photobook The Americans, which was published in the U.S. in 1959. The Americans is a collection of black and white photographs from Frank’s cross-country road trip in the 1950s. Frank photographs a post-war America, a diverse and complex place filled with injustice alongside beauty. To say that Frank’s photographs of America changed documentary photography would be an understatement; they “caused nothing short of a revolution” (Sidley, MoMA). His photographs are undoubtedly iconic and still relevant in a country that remains politically divided and struggles with racism.

Frank was born into a German-Jewish family in Zurich in 1924 and immigrated to the United States at 23 years old. His unique position as a Jewish immigrant in the United States made him an outsider looking in, which had a great effect on his photographs; he managed to capture the social, racial, religious, and geographic tensions between Americans. “‘I think people like the book because it shows what people think about but don’t discuss,’” Frank told the New York Times (Dawidoff, NYT).

I’ve also chosen to look at Frank’s handcrafted book from 1952, Black, White and Things, which contains a variety of his photographs taken in Europe, South America, and the United States. These photographs are quiet and contemplative, and they depict peaceful situations, quite the contrast to The Americans.

I love the look of black and white photographs; they are classic and timeless. Most of Frank’s photographs don’t explore the domestic sphere; he positions himself just outside of the home, which is something that caught my eye. The Americans is at the same time familiar and foreign to me. After all, I’m from a suburb of Detroit, and I’ve been to about five other states besides my own. I haven’t seen all of America yet The Americans helps me visualize it. The subjects in Black, White and Things are even more foreign, in terms of the physical space they occupy, but spark my interest all the same. As an outsider, in both The Americans and Black, White and Things, Frank noticed things that others weren’t able to see — the beauty and the ugliness at the same time — and in my own photographs, I’d love to capture this dichotomy in Ann Arbor as well.

In his Guggenheim application talking about what the photographing of America entails, Robert Frank said, “I speak of things that are there, anywhere and everywhere — easily found, not easily selected and interpreted.”

Unlike other photographers we’ve looked at, like Weegee, Robert Frank did not stage his photographs. In The Americans, he does not directly engage with his human subjects, taking a non-confrontational approach. His composition is notable — his photographs have grainy, high contrasts, are in black and white, and are sometimes blurry. The Americans explores how people interact (or don’t) in the spaces they occupy and the consequential social implications of their interactions as Americans.

The photographs I’ve chosen from Frank don’t necessarily focus on human subjects, but instead, focus on objects used by them. For the most part, there is stillness in the frames. One photograph I’m particularly interested in is Frank’s “Rooming House” in Los Angeles. He’s only photographed the exterior of the house, not the renters — a man is visible, but his face is not in frame. Similarly, although there are people, “Drive-in movie” in Detroit focuses on the cars and the big screen while “Bar” in NYC focuses on the jukebox. Frank understood America’s obsession with cars and entertainment. I’d argue the same phenomenon occurs in the photographs I’ve chosen from Black, White and Things — in “Table/Mallorca” the absence of people is noticeable while “Chauffeur/London” recognizes the person, a chauffeur, although the car is what our eye is drawn to.

The “Rooming House” particularly struck me, with its large wooden stairs and the detailed designs on the bannisters. However, it doesn’t look like it’s in the best shape. Why was Frank taken with this particular house? This photograph reminded me of the houses that are rented by college students in Ann Arbor. Most aren’t beautiful but have an array of faded colors and mismatched shapes and sizes. I looked at the houses around my neighborhood in Ann Arbor, and while they did have some notable features, I wasn’t excited to photograph them.

I tried to take photographs that portray the spaces occupied by humans without intentionally capturing their physical presence, like houses, restaurants, or cars. At first, I was interested in the theme of unfamiliarity that Frank illuminates in his photographs from his unique position as an outsider. But I found myself straying away from these spaces and turned to what I encountered in my day to day life, like shops around downtown Ann Arbor and parks I run through.

Frank once said, “I was very free with the camera. I didn’t think of what would be the correct thing to do; I did what I felt good doing. I was like an action painter” (Gayford, Art News). I wasn’t too strict with the photographs I took, however, I did put myself in a restrictive box thinking I only had to take one type of photograph with one subject. In the end, I found many subjects interesting and captured those. I was carefree yet intentional, pulling out my phone at random times when something caught my eye.

With the increased accessibility to a camera (basically every smartphone has one), it isn’t strange to see people around me taking photographs, especially “selfies” on a college campus. But I can’t deny that there was a sense of unease within me and a lack of confidence as I was taking my photographs on my iPhone 7 Plus. Unlike Frank and his unfamiliarity with America, I wasn’t a stranger to Ann Arbor. As an outsider looking into America, there must’ve been a lot of curiosity stemming from Frank. I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for almost three years now, and although the city is an exciting place to be and I haven’t explored it all, it has now become familiar to me.

It was challenging to try to take photographs like Frank, and I stopped capturing houses in Ann Arbor because I wasn’t satisfied with those photographs. I originally planned to photograph cars, restaurants, and houses but when I started photographing, those things didn’t seem exciting or seem to be capturing much. Sure, they make up Ann Arbor in their own way, but I quickly found out they didn’t interest me as much as I thought. There’s a lack of emotion in the photographs that depict houses, maybe because they don’t have human subjects but maybe my disinterest is evident. Some of them are aesthetically pleasing to look at, but that wasn’t Frank’s purpose.

What I liked about The Americans was the diversity of the subjects Frank’s photographed. Frank, “hoped to express the emotional rhythms of the United States, to portray underlying realities and misgivings — how it felt to be wealthy, to be poor, to be in love, to be alone, to be young or old, to be black or white, to live along a country road or to walk a crowded sidewalk, to be overworked or sleeping in parks, to be a swaggering Southern couple or to be young and gay in New York, to be politicking or at prayer.” (Dawidoff, NYT). How Frank chose to sequence his photographs in The Americans is intriguing too. You could go from looking at a cowboy in a bar to a Black nurse holding a white baby, which is a reflection of the diversity and distinctiveness of American culture.

Because I chose to mimic Frank closely, I wanted to edit my photographs with a black and white filter, but as a result, the photographs of the houses ended up giving a uniform impression — even though they each have their own quirks. So I changed gears. I tapped into my own comfortability and began to take photographs of the objects around me. I took photographs at Encore Records, at Literati Bookstore, at Gallup Park, and at a variety of other places I feel at ease in Ann Arbor, which completely contradicts my original intention of unfamiliarity. However, I think I was still able to recognize the beauty and the ugliness within Ann Arbor, just like Frank in The Americans. I was prone to focus on the beauty and what I thought was cool, but I think that’s OK. Frank himself was captivated by Americans and their flashy interests, and his deep fascination is apparent throughout The Americans.

Martin Gayford of ARTnews once described Frank’s photography as “fleeting glimpses” (Gayford, Art News). I wouldn’t dare compare myself to Frank, but I definitely think that the photographs I took were brief moments I intentionally chose to focus my attention on. After taking my photographs, I realized that there were some similarities between mine and Franks. I liked that in Frank’s “Salt Lake City” and my “Tower” that there are two cone-shaped pieces of the building with points taking up the very top of the photographs. I liked the notable loneliness in Frank’s “Table/Mallorca” and my “Porch Chairs” due to the lack of people. I liked the bright lights shining off of the jukebox in Frank’s “Bar” and the neon sign in my “Light’s Up.”

It’s important to recognize that Frank didn’t have the “perfect” photographs. As I mentioned before, his photographs have grainy, high contrasts, and are blurry at times. After looking at the photographs I took, I began to notice the shadows that created their own subjects I had not chosen to focus on. In “Winter at W Keech,” for example, the glass of the door reflects the large tree in front of the house — it adds another layer of symmetry with the branches lining up nicely with the borders on the glass, which I had not noticed when taking the photograph. Many other photographs also have the reflection of a window, like “Tower,” and shadows from the sunlight, like “Porch Chairs.” I also noticed unintentional reflections and movements in many of them, like in “Connor’s Cat” and in “Winter at W Keech” with the falling snow. I started to appreciate my photographs more because although they might be simple, they are unique to my experience as a resident of Ann Arbor.

Much has changed in America since Frank took his photographs in the 50s. It was, perhaps, a simpler time where jukeboxes were in every bar and drive-in movies were still popular. Yet, American social culture hasn’t drastically changed since Frank’s road trip over 60 years ago because people still congregate at bars and movies remain an integral part of the lives of many Americans. Red, white, and blue flags still fly and America still appears to be a melting pot.

Frank photographed what he saw, the material Americans gave offered him. But, he also carefully chose which photographs to include in his photobook, so The Americans exemplifies his keen perspective on American culture. I hope that my own photographs illustrate my experiences in Ann Arbor.

Dawidoff, Nicholas. “The Man Who Saw America.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 July 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/robert-franks-america.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article.

Frank, Robert. Black, White and Things, 1952. https://www.nga.gov/features/robert-frank/black-white-and-things-1952.html

Frank, Robert. The Americans, 1959. Print.

Gayford, Martin. “An Intimate Interview with Robert Frank: ‘He Was Just What You Would Expect from a Description by Jack Kerouac’.” ARTnews.com, ARTnews.com, 18 Nov. 2019, https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/martin-gayford-robert-frank-13221/.

PBSNewsHour, How Acclaimed Photographer Robert Frank Examined America ‘beneath the Surface’. YouTube, YouTube, 10 Sept. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaPMt9PHc4A.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , director. Robert Frank on Photographing The Americans. YouTube, YouTube, 3 Dec. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kMwnmrL5FM.

Sidley, Kelly. “Robert Frank: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/artists/1973.