The first book of photography I purchased for myself was Robert Frank’s “The Americans.” I was only beginning to explore the images of different well-known photographers and really didn’t know what I was looking at. All I knew is that when I opened the mostly black dust jacked and began flipping through the gritty black and white images, I knew I was seeing something different that I hadn’t experienced before. It also peaked my adolescent curiosity that the introduction was written by Jack Kerouac and I had just finished reading “The Road.”
I wish I could quote for you the entire introduction of prose Kerouac used to describe the images in Frank’s book – his words were reflections of the images themselves. A woman working in a cafe, an American flag flying on across a building with people peering out the window, people at a funeral and a child playing next to a jukebox in South Carolina to name only a few images that have stuck with me. And the one sentence I remember from the introduction, “After seeing these pictures you end u finally not knowing any more whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin.” Unfortunately, in a move from my last job in Tennessee, three boxes of books were misplaced by the United States Postal Service, “The Americans” being one of them.
The New York Times has a great audio interview with Robert Frank which has rekindled my memories of the book.
Listen to the interview here.
Read the NYT article here. It’s a very comprehensive article about the historical significance of the book and describes how his images changed documentary photography.