Lisa Presgraves

Homework One

The book of Frank’s work does not contain text, but offers a narrative through the arrangement of images.

I like the two images in sequence of Drug Store – Detroit and Coffee Shop, railway station –Indianapolis

because they seem to tell a little story about café culture in the U.S. during the 1950’s. The compositions

are very different between these two images, and they create interest by playing off each other. For

example, the first image has a great depth of field showing the service bar packed with customers, then the

next image is quieter with a lone server being the counter with a more shallow depth of field. I also find

the vertical orientation of the first image supports the feeling of a bustling environment, while the

horizontal orientation supports a calmer environment with less movement.

Ivan Sigal’s work is really interesting. The images are unified by size, but they are arranged to toggle

between quiet, somber scenes and youthful, exuberant scenes. Rather than these images working together

to tell a story, they seem to tell two separate stories. As I move from one image to the next, I image that I

can hear the stillness in one, then music and the chatter of a party in the next. The perspective of the

images supports the feeling that there are two separate narratives. All the images of an older generation

are balanced, level, and straight on. The images of a younger generation are tilted and blurred, and

sometimes very close to the subject.

Taryn Simon’s is very different visually, and conceptually, from Ivan Sigal’s

and Robert Frank’s work. Each portrait collection is so repetitive that it

seems boring at first glance, but the work is meaningful without exuberant

visual cues. There is so much impact in her simple arrangement, particularly

in the absence of certain people in the portrait collections. Simon clearly took

the time to carefully select the family lines for her work because the history

of the families she documented are significant, adding to the power of her

work. Another key difference is the text. The way her work is composed, the

images rely on the accompanied text for context and meaning. The images of

related objects also works with the text to support the power of the portraits.

Frank & Sigal’s work are meaningful without text, while Simon’s work relies on

text to support the images. Simon’s work is also the most obviously composed, as the

repetition of the portraits is fundamental in the arrangement of the images. Sigal’s

work also appears somewhat planned, as there is a level of intimacy and familiarity

in the images. The subjects of his work were comfortable with him, and allowed a

close proximity for the photographs. Frank’s work looks the most spontaneous, as

though he snapped photos while he was passed from one area to the next.