Robert Frank was a Swiss-American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most famous work is his book “The Americans” in which he shows an outsiders view of American society in the 1950’s. His book consisted of 83 photographs.

Analysis

Technical

In this image, Robert Frank uses different techniques to create the photo that he wants. A fast shutter speed seems to be used due to the sharpness of the possibly moving trolley. Frank also uses a low ISO to create a darker image. The natural lighting of the sun also helps to create a natural looking image that captures Americas society in the middle of their day. A deep depth of field is used as well to keep the image sharp and focussed.

This image has lots of different settings working well together but the image is cleverly structured by Frank to use the rule of thirds. The bottom and top of the window run along the horizontal lines whilst the old lady and the coloured man are placed at the vertical lines. This makes the image seem instantly appealing and interesting to the human eye.

Visual

In the photograph a high contrast is used in the black and white image to create a more dramatic image. The contrast comes from the white bars which cleverly break up the image into different sections because of the natural frames. This influences the viewer to view the photograph in more detail. The wide variety of tones between the black man and the white people adds even more contrast and drama in the image.

Contextual

This photograph was taken in the 1950’s in New Orleans. It shows how the American society travels and the slight division of the whites and the blacks. As you can see, the white people are sat at the front and the black people are sat at the back, at this point in time the blacks did not have as equal rights as they do today so this documents the slow changes that have happened throughout history.

Conceptual

Racial segregation is shown in Frank’s photograph. There appears to be a social hierarchy from left to right. The white frames in the image segregate old people, white people, children and black people. On the left of the image you can see a white man partially hidden by a window; his separation and cover from the photograph represents how the whites were protected by society but the blacks weren’t.