Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frankis an American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century." Frank later expanded into...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth9 November 1924
CountrySwitzerland
It seems to go in cycles. There have periods of history where it was considered bad form to flaunt your wealth but we are not in one of those now. Over the last 30 years, there has been a gradual weakening of the idea that you should not have a house too big because the concept of what is too big has changed.
My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished.
It is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.
There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough - there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph.
Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference
The eye should learn to listen before it looks.
Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.
When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.
We're looking at a big picture. We need to know what's going on out there - to be able to tell people what's working and not working, and what needs to be under review.