ARTH1100 History of Photography S2017

After warching the video about Rober Frank, named the American, I was able to see his point of view about American society. He focused his photographs in ordinary people, people that were suffering in our society during 1950s. In the photographs we saw a lot people who were emotionally bored, depressed and with a lot of stress. Part of this, because of the segregation and racism in the south of the country. His photographs all were amazing and very different from others that we usually see in todays world.

After watching the video on the exhibition of Robert Frank’s photographs that were not included in Robert Frank’s book. I think Robert Frank is artistic in a political way, the way he takes photos of ordinary people expresses all the feelings of the person while they do their work tells the story itself. His photographs had a natural feeling of everyday life. When we look into his work deeper it does not look like any of his work was staged. In some of the photos we see people depressed or not happy at the moment because most of the photos were taken outside and of ordinary people while they were doing daily tasks. Frank took a journey across the country to get an idea of what everyone in America was experiencing after World War II. Most of his photographs were bleak, they held very deep meaning and a lot of them had separate residential and work environment due to their different color people. Just like we saw a photo in the class where a dark color lady was holding and looking after a white/light skin child but she will never be accepted to sit and dine with that family or to travel with them and sit in the seats next to them. Frank showed interest in the southern areas through his photographs that were taken before the Civil Rights movement, many of his photographs were focused on racism as I talked earlier about the dark skin African-American lady and the white child

After watching the short video on the Exhibit in Stanford of the photographs that were not included into Robert Frank’s book, what I took from all of it was that his style of photography was very clever and was also very honest of the everyday life as an American. The reason I say Robert Frank’s photographs were clever is due to the fact that he took photographs of one person or maybe two people, using certain angles and objects that cut out parts of the peoples bodies, as a method to make them look desolate, even almost dismal. Robert Frank utilizes many types of styles in his photographs, but the style used the most is bleak, non of his photographs have a sense of propaganda. They’re not staged, they are all completely honest and they show the true emotions of the people doing their everyday tasks. Although maybe many of these people may be very happy, the technique used by Frank makes the people look as if they’re dreading their lives. Lastly, the photograph that stood out the most to me was the one of the two people blocked out by the American flag, this photograph makes it seem bleak due to the angle used, however, maybe both of those people were smiling and happy.

After watching the video on the exhibition of Robert Frank’s photography book The Americans (1958) and the photographs that did not make it into publications, I believe that Robert Frank is artistic in a political way and finds a unique type of approach to display his pictures. He captures everyday things that people were doing which told a story for itself. His photographs had a natural feeling to them and it was clearly not staged. It is basically everyday people doing everyday routines. It was an eye opener to what people outside of America believed American lives were like. Some of these images may have changed the outlook on life in America. The America that he was displaying was a very different perspective from what the news media was showing. For example, many of his photographs displayed racism. There are some photos which show colored people sitting on the back of the bus while white people sat in the front of the bus which depicted a racial segregation. Then, there was a photo from down South where a colored woman is holding a white baby and it makes many people wonder how a white person can trust a colored person to take care of their child, yet there is still a segregation because of their skin color. Overall, I feel like Frank’s photographs was an eye opener to many people because he did not stage photographs, but he took photographs in their natural element which spoke for themselves.

The themes in Robert Frank’s The Americans were artistic, bleak, and political; therefore it was a realistic depiction of America. Through his photographic book, Frank showed the world how complex it is to be an American. Frank addresses the feelings of Americans that many people did not bring awareness to. When photographing, Frank traveled through American, capturing images of people living their lives participating in routine activities. The subjects in Frank’s photography are not staged. People are photographed in their true mental and physical element. Frank did not cater to the popular view of America at that time nor was he concerned with going against the grain. Many newspapers during that period only showed images of happy Americans. The American according to the newspapers and magazines were totally different from the American that Frank was showing. Franks photography is similar to modern day photoshop of a picture. Today we have many photographic technologies that can make a photographic subject seem happier or more beautiful. The mood of the room can even be altered to make it appear more uplifting. In Frank’s period, magazines were focused on showing the positivity of the world. They were simply photographers rather than photojournalist. A photojournalist is not concerned with how the picture will appear to people or how people will perceive the photograph. A photojournalist’s priority is capturing the truth. It takes a level of skill and artistic ability to capture a picture with artistic value without staging the scene. Of course Frank’s photographs will be bleak and political at times because that what it means to be an American. Americans are versatile. Americans may be disinterested at inappropriate times and they may express their political views out of turn however that is what it means to be American. In order to fully depict an American, one must include artistic, bleak, and political photographs if it was anything less than it should not be deserving of such a title as The American