Hw#4: Robert Frank’s America

Robert Frank was born in November 9, 1924; he is a Swiss-American photographer and a documentary filmmaker. Robert Frank is mostly known for his book named The Americans. His book contains only 83 photographs that were taken during the 1950s but he took more than 83 photographs of Americans. The purpose of his work was to take photographs of the everyday life of Americans. Robert’s photographs changed the way people thought about art photography. he took photographs from one end of the coast to another, to cover what he was aiming for; the everyday life of people in America. The exhibition at Stanford University’s Cantor Center for Visual Arts displays Robert’s photography that was not included in the book The Americans along with the photographs that are in the book. I find Frank’s photographs in a combination of art, being bleak and political, because he is capturing the overall life of Americans which involves the good and not so good side of the United States. In the video states that racial segregation affected Robert, he could not explain how a white woman would trust her baby to a black woman but will not sit next to her. The most fascinating thing about his work of photography is that his photographs are not staged, meaning that people are not posing for him. His photographs are images that were taken randomly and without notice.