Robert Franks: The Americans

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.