Robert Frank Who Presents the Cultures of the Americans in Form of Photographs - Article Example

Robert Frank Name Institution Course Location Lecturer Date ROBERT FRANK Robert Frank is a Swiss-born photographer born in November 9, 1924.He is an American national and he lives in New York. He is aged 89 years. Robert is an important figure in films and photography in America (Frank 2013).He is well known for his work ‘The Americans’. He was a professional industrial photography and he became a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar magazine in Paris. After 1959, he turned to cinematography. In the history of photography, Robert Frank will always be remembered as the photographer who diverged from the contemplary standards of photography and used gritty aesthetics when taking his photographs (Rosler 1989).He published several photobooks and took several filmed.In the cultural context, Frank presents the cultures of the Americans in form of photographs. He found out that Americans were divided according to races and took photographs to document this. (Frank & Cook 1995) Achievements The publishing of his photo book ‘The Americans’ is his greatest achievement. Frank won several awards. In 1996,he was the recipient of Hassel lad Foundation’s International Photography Award. In 2000, he won Cornell Capa Award. In 2009, he was the recipient of the Principal Award at Oberhausen Film Festival. ‘The Americans’ ‘The Americans’ was first published in France in 1958 and then in United States in 1959(Frank & Kerouac 1986).He went on road trips during which he took 28000 photographs out which he selected 83 photographs to publish ‘The Americans’. His interests to document the tensions between the optimism of 1950s and the realities of race and class differences. He found irony in the American culture and wealth over this tension that gave his photographs clear contrast to the photographs taken by other American photojournalists. At first, he had difficulties to get a publisher to publish his work because of diverging from the contemplary photographic standards. Even after the publishing of this book in Paris, it received criticism. Robert Frank used the photographs to show the dark side of America which had not been shown before through ‘The Americans’. In this photo book, Frank ended up taking photographs of cars, consumerism, American lunch counters, public works, juke boxes, cemeteries and suburbs. Photographic technique During the 1950s, the aesthetic of photography advocated for sharp, clean and well-exposed photographs. Frank often shot his photographs at night using imprecise focus, grainy film and he also incorporated blur in his work. Frank also printed photographs with extreme contrast. He printed photographs with trapezoidal shapes and he would radically crop his photographs(Hirsch 2008).In ‘The Americans’, he was criticized very harshly by the people who said that the prints were flawed by muddy exposures, general sloppiness, meaningless blur grain and drunken horizons. He had a gritty aesthetic. His photographs had diverged from the contemplary standards of photographs. Frank had learned this from his mentor, Brodovitch who encouraged his students to take risks. He encouraged his students to bleach negatives, print two photographs on top of each other, use imprecise focuses, incorporate blur in their work and to use foreground forms.Brodovitch also encouraged students to crop the photographs radically and to distort print. In many of the pictures that Frank took, he didn’t bother to check the controls of his camera and also when taking them, he did not bother to look through the viewfinder. This is with regards to the brightness and focus. The photographs taken by Frank emphasized on feelings. He wanted to challenge the Americans to ask themselves what they were looking at and to also challenge their views and prejudices concerning America. Intended theme Frank wanted to show the disparity between the rich and the poor in America (Frank 2013).He wanted to show the full picture of the American social and economic classes. He did this because the subject on the rich had not been explored during his time. When compared to the poor who would be found in the open, it was hard to take photographs of the rich as they were mostly behind closed doors. To take photographs of the rich, he had focus on movie premieres. Frank also wanted to convey racism. He was faced with difficulties to show racism through photographs. He was able to capture racism as he went deeper south though the photos were not too clear. He was able to do this by comparing living conditions of the poverty-stricken African Americans and the rich whites(Frank & Cook 1995) Robert Frank also wanted to show the role of mass consumerism in the American life. When travelling, he saw the over abundance of the choices people had. There were advertisements, signs, newspapers and magazines to inform people of items. His work in the past decade During the past decade, Robert Frank has published photobooks, taken films and he has also been to several exhibitions. In 2006, he published his photo book ‘Come again’. The photographs in this book are of the devastated downtown of Beirut’s in the aftermath of the Lebanese civil war. These photographs had been taken in 1991.This book gives insights of Frank’s early stages of experimentation with Polaroid. In 2007, he published his photo book ‘London/Wales’. This photo book have Frank’s photographs which have never been seen and it has the images London money with the grimy working class of postwar Wales. In 2008,a reconstructed version of ‘The Americans’ was published by Steidl. In 2004, 2008, he filmed a film called “True Story”. This film has themes which are familiar, loss of friends and family members. This film Robert’s photographs, his wife’s art, excerpts from earlier films and letter written by his son. This film also reveals the late career preoccupations of Robert Frank. In the past decade, Robert Frank has been to several exhibitions. In 2009, he toured to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D C. In 2012, he toured to the Multimedia Museum Art, Moscow. Frank’s photographs lacked photographic technique and he applied gritty aesthetic deliberately. He disregarded creating images with good tonal ranges. Though Frank’s photographs had not reached the standards of photography which are that the image should be sharp, clean and well exposed his work inspired me because he created a meaningful and memorable project. Frank used his photographs to show the themes of disparity between the rich and the poor and racism in America. This interested me because no other photo journalist of his time had captured these themes. His work was an inspiration to many photographers across the world especially the street photographers. His work has helped many photographers on their projects. References Frank, R 2013 Falling behind: How rising inequality harms the middle class Vol 4 Univ of California Press. Frank, R H, & Cook, P J 1995 The winner-take-all society: How more and more Americans compete for fewer and bigger prizes, encouraging economic waste, income inequality, and an impoverished cultural life. Frank, R, & Kerouac, J 1986 The Americans Pantheon Books. Hirsch, R 2008 Seizing the light A history of photography. Rosier, M 1989 in, around, and afterthoughts on documentary photography the contest of meaning: Critical histories of photography, 303-340. Read More