While learning about Robert Frank's American photography, I found out that Walker Evans, an American photographer influenced him to pursue that project. He was also a photojournalist. Evans is best known for his documentation of the Great Depression. The image above is "Alabama Tenant Farmer Family singing Hymns" (1936). This was taken towards the end of the depression, in the Southern U.S.

The title describes the picture exactly. There is a family singing hymns. The father is holding the book and the children are following his cue. While non of them are poorly dressed, they aren't formally dressed either. The boys' hair is a little shaggy. Lots of wrinkles in everyone's clothes. These details help the picture provide more exposition.

The choice of backdrop, the side paneling of a house, adds scale to the image. Each child reaches a different height in the paneling, and the father towers above. It adds a sense of measure to the gradient established by having them stand in order from shortest to tallest. The expression in their faces while singing also shows each one's character. The father is stolid. The daughter attempts maturity. One son seems uncertain. And the shortest boy is overcompensating by appearing to sing the loudest, something his aggressively opened mouth leads me to believe he is doing.

Ultimately, its the positioning of the family and the details of them that made this a strong picture for me. The way they look, how they behave, it gave the picture it's feeling of a tired hope. They don't look particularly happy, and how could they given the time this was taken, but they don't look defeated. And the singing cues that they're biding for a better time.

Last post was about a Robert, this one's about another. Robert Frank was a Swiss Photographer who won the Guggenheim fellowship. He used that funding to tour across the United States, photographing different cities, different people, and culminated that with his photographic book, The Americans.

Frank toured through many cities, Houston included, but the image I included is one that drew me in. Titled "US 90" (1956), the photograph is of a woman in a car on the shoulder of a Texas highway. US 90 runs along the southern border of Texas. I had traveled down this highway in the summer of 2019 with a friend while on our way to see Marfa, Texas and White Sands, New Mexico.

I think that's why i gravitated towards it. I've been on that highway, some fifty-plus years after. And with the small amount of background exposition, I did get a sense of familiarity with the setting. I could imagine the temperature and feeling of the day just based off the image. And I think that's something other who may not have driven here could also take away. The desert is visible, and it's not hard to imagine was that would feel like

The main object in the image is the car. The camera is tilted at an angle that shows us half of the windshield and on headlight. Behind the car is the road, mountains, and possibly phone line poles. In the passenger seat is a woman looking forward, and a child with his head leaning against her shoulder.

The mood that i pick up is one of exhaustion. The kid is asleep. The woman look out of it. This highway, and west Texas for that matter, is known for how flat and "ugly" it is. All desert and heat. Flat. After Big Bend, there isn't much for a while. And the picture captures that through their expressions.