I just got back from the Robert Frank show at the National Gallery of Art. He’s always been one of my heroes. Somehow I managed to go all this time without actually owning the book “The Americans”. I guess I just always had acess to it while in school so I never got around to it. Lucky for me that procrastination has paid off. The NGA has released an expanded version of it in conjunction with this show. It has contact sheets, work prints, examples of alternate sequencing of the images and a bunch of other cool stuff. I especially like seeing the letters to his friends and mentors and the original drafts of Kerouac’s intro and Frank’s application and application letter for the Guggenheim Grant. Pretty sweet. Also the plates of the images look the best out of any edition of the book I have ever seen. Steidl printed it which explains that. I had the pleasure of working with them on the book for the print studio I used to work for. They do REALLY nice work.
I took my Leica down with me. Sort of felt it would be wrong for a photographer to show up at this exhibit with out a camera. Felt good to shoot film especially with that camera. I have like ten rolls that have been sitting on my desk that need to be developed. Hope once I get them processed I can get the dust out of my film scanner and start working on them.