TuTh History of Photography F2017

My definition of art is to show beauty from a unique or different perspective. Robert Frank used photography to show the facts of America at the time, so it is not “artistic”. To show the facts is not “bleak” because facts are something we should know. After we know the facts, we can get improve. It is also not “political”. I only see the facts from the photos, not political factors. For me, the Flag is a symbol of  America, but it didn’t show any political stuff in the photos.

I thought that Robert Frank’s photographs were artistic because his main goal was to show how Americans live. Even though his photographs showed political and racial issues, he wanted to capture how they lived to people outside of the country. I don’t think he intended for his photographs to be political because like I mentioned before that wasn’t really his main goal. All he wanted was to show how they lived. However, some people didn’t really like his work because it showed America as a boring empty place. Were people are districted or bored which is understandable why some people didn’t like it because it shows a bad image about America and Americans. But as mentioned in the short video In Unseen Photos. A clearer Picture of Robert Frank’s America | KQED Arts, people just failed to see how curious he was about Americans.

Robert Frank was a Jewish man who wanted to look at America as a whole country. He wanted to capture the different issues and such that were not known by others outside of the country, but well known to those within it. Such issues were racial or even political. Robert Frank had taken photos that had shown racial segregation, from showing blacks on the back of the bus while whites were at the front, or even a black woman holding a white infant. His photos were both artistic and political, touching on the issue of segregation subtly in the form of clean, black and white photographs he had taken.

Thanksgiving is usually a time to come together and enjoy the delicious and attractive looking food made for the family to enjoy, while also enjoying time spent together. In today’s day and age, my generation and even older people that are into social media normally like to take photos of their dishes that were created, whether filled with turkey. mac and cheese, yams, cranberry sauce, etc., and post them on Instagram for all to see. In addition to taking photos of themselves and their family to post, of course the vibrant colors and flavors of “food porn” as it’s labeled would also be shown off for others to see as well. William Eggleston was one such person who would have also done the same, taking photos of things others wouldn’t find so controversial or deemed as boring and not as artistic to look at, especially in color. However, in this day and age, color photography is widely accepted, now with being able to be shown in eye popping high definition, since the colors do indeed bring out the beauty in the photo that could also be seen the same way up close.

I lost the photo I took of my food during Thanksgiving because I ended up posting it on Snapchat (which the photos disappear from your story after 24 hours) so I don’t have a photo of the mouth watering mac and cheese I had for Thanksgiving, so I had to pull this photo from Google, which isn’t as good looking as the mac and cheese I had but it’s close!

Robert Frank was a great photographer. He showed how Americans they lived their lives in certain photos. His exhibit was well organized showing his photos in the 1950’s of the public. A lot of his photos were powerful like when they talked about how the African American women was holding the Caucasian baby. This photo showed there was no racism and he wasn’t afraid to use that kind of photo publicly. Frank’s exhibit became historical to the new age we live in. Elderly who are alive still will look back on these photos and see how many times have changed. I’m glad Frank got the recognition he deserved as a photographer.

Robert Frank was one of the most prolific and influential photographers in photography history. His arrival to America and capturing photos of it illustrated to audiences how America’s lifestyle and culture was depicted .  Frank’s choice of theme shown in his images, I think is very artistic and genius. Frank captured photos of culture, racism, segregation, and politics that described America in one huge collage. What’s unique about Robert Frank is that he allows us to reiterate his images and create a story out of it. This shows to tell that images speak louder than words and have such an influence.

After watching the video, at first it seemed that the theme addressed in Frank’s photographs were bleak. Because all the photographs taken were usual normal photographs of daily life. I found nothing really appealing about it, But later on as I saw more of the photographs it really seemed artistic to me. The photographs were really well taken and every picture had its own saying. The kind of work he did on his photographs were creative. How people use to see America at that time and how was the people’s perspective at that time. It did not seem political to me because all of the photographs I have seen does not really show politics anywhere, it’s just the way people react or think about the photographs. The photographs were just talking America!

Watching the short video about Robert Frank, i thought his photographs were very bleak but at the same time very artistic. I called it bleak because its just pictures of regular people doing regular things. I also call it artistic because the pictures were taken in a way that made you think about how america was and that it wasn’t this dream land but it was a regular place where people lived their lives in solitude not knowing the person around them. Each of his photos had a meaning behind it and the fact that he took his time to select 83 out of the many pictures he took made it very special and meaningful to his work. It showed how much he believed in his work and how talented he was a photographer.

Robert Frank one of the greatest achievement photographers of the twenty centuries, his photography gives me a sense of amiable, maybe because of his works essentially is about ordinary people that just like us. Recording American’s daily life, not like propaganda for welcome others which refer to the magazine, Frank uses his art form shows positive and negative of this country. When Frank travels to the south he doesn’t have any experience of segregation, the picture he took of a black lady holding on a white baby touch my feeling a lot. He is a talented photographer who uses photographs to explore how is individual related to the country as a unit.