Emily Naff

Photography Faculty

Recommends

The Americans

By

Robert Frank

Why? 

“Robert Frank’s “The Americans” is one of my all time favorite photo books.   The book was controversial when first released because it showed a darker side of America that many people didn’t want to acknowledge existed at the time.   Jack Kerouac described it best, “…with that little camera that he [Robert Frank} raises and snaps, with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.”  The work in this book is a powerful illustration of the fact that photographs can evoke the same emotions as poetry.”