Jacob Holdt: “Not Born in the USA – A Vagabond’s Views” (1986)

He had tea in the garden of a Mrs. Pabst, wife of a multimillionaire brewer. When Holdt showed her the photographs he had been taking in his travels, Mrs. Pabst would shriek, “I hate these lazy animals. Why don’t they get jobs?” Not born in the USA – A Vagabond’s Views By Jon Vankin, The […]

ASX.TV: Streetwise – “Robert Frank and The Americans” (2011)

Streetwise builds on Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s snapshot aesthetic, which gained attention following the release of his groundbreaking book, The Americans in 1959. Frank’s focus on a more personal documentary style influenced a new generation of photographers, including legendaries such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Jerry Berndt, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon […]

The Photographer in the Beat-Hipster Idiom – Robert Frank’s The Americans

from ‘The Americans’ @ Robert Frank   Frank’s personality, described by Joyce Johnson as a blend of “European dourness and pessimistic wit,” certainly helped to focus his photographic vision.   By George Cotkin, Professor, Postwar United States Intellectual and Cultural History, California Polytechnic State University Few analysts have captured the sadness, tensions, ironies and possibilities […]

Robert Frank’s America (1982)

The feeling among them was unanimous: this was not how America was to be shown. But what was at issue was a larger matter than patriotism. The challenge of Frank’s work in the late ’50s lay in his treatment of his subject matter and in his use of a photographic style well out of the […]

Stephen Shore: “Uncommon Places” (2004)

Stephen Shore. Merced River, Yosemite National Park, California, August 13, 1979 In 1982, a slender yet hugely impressive version of Uncommon Places was released. Its impact was felt almost immediately, forever changing the course of art photography, and securing Stephen Shore a place within the canon of photographic history.   By Aaron Schuman, originally published […]

Walker Evans and Robert Frank – An Essay on Influence by Tod Papageorge (1981)

 The purpose of this (text) is to describe the influence of Walker Evans’ American Photographs (1938) on The Americans (1959) of Robert Frank. By Tod Papageorge The purpose of this monograph is to describe the influence of Walker Evans’ American Photographs (1938) on The Americans (1959) of Robert Frank. To do this, the photographs in […]

One Life – Several Landscapes: An Appreciation of Robert Adams (1996)

As I have considered it over the years, the work has always seemed a sustaining and challenging mix of beauty, hope, despair, anger and love.   By Peter Brown, Originally published in SPOT, Spring 1996 “Over the years I have come to believe… that we live in several landscapes at once, among them the landscape […]

The Indecisive Moment: Frank, Klein, and ‘Stream-Of-Consciousness’ Photography (2004)

 Half the time the photographers seemed not to have even looked through the camera. Far from seeking the perfect composition, the ‘decisive moment’, their work seemed curiously unfinished. It captured ‘indecisive’ rather than decisive moments.   By Gerry Badger “Frank… and Klein brought to the decade a feeling for its woes which, in retrospect, synthesizes […]

An Uncommon Interview with Stephen Shore (2007)

Stephen Shore is a prominent photographer and photographic educator. A pioneer in the field of color photography, Shore has published numerous books of photography, included his seminal book, Uncommon Places, published in 1982 (reissued in 2004).

Robert Frank: Dissecting the American Image (1986)

 The lesson often learned from The Americans was not one of content or meaning, but a realization of the enormous strength of the attitude behind it.   What a poem this is, what poems can be written about this book of pictures some day… — Jack Kerouac   By Jno Cook for Exposure Magazine, Volume […]