In this rare interview, photographer Robert Frank discusses his seminal book The Americans (1958). He reflects on specific images from the series and gives insight into his process at the time.
I read The Americans for the first time in high school and it was a magnificent revelation - as much now as I'm sure it was then. These were pictures unsatisfied with the romanticism of the American image of itself, ones that wanted to pry beneath the surface and expose what people didn't want to look at. A magnificently necessary book from a magnificently necessary artist. May he rest in peace and may his work echo through the ages.
Totally agree with his statement that photographing every day helps you get better. Not only at knowing your equipment but "seeing" photographically so Lady Luck shines down more often. As HCB said, "your first 10,000 pictures are the worst." With today's digital age, the number probably needs to be more like 100,000!
Nice interview. But please, please forget this kind of naive background music which makes videos like this the same category like a kid's influencer video for home crafting or something. It simply doesn't work.
60 pictures of day..of course it has to work out...but you need to have the eye to choose, to pick out the photographs take work for you, that "speak" to you when you look at the contact sheet. That process of editing the photos, to get the right ones, that is were the art is, that is what separates an artist for just anybody taking a photo.
I dont think he was thinking of art when he photographed.. There is no time to think about any phony art when you hands and spinning mind are trying to keep up with reality to maybe catch something at the speed of life.
Robert Frank, whose raw, spontaneous images made him one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, has died at the age of 94. Robert Frank groundbreaking work is "Americans". This photo was first published in France in 1958 and is called "Les Americains".www.dianjinwa.com/video/40956.html
I really enjoy letting people borrow my copy of The Americans, they're usually mesmerized by the content. Other than The Family of Man, is there a more influential book of photography in the 20th Century? Probably not.
