The Histograms
A project where I tore up my well-loved copy of Robert Frank’s “The Americans” from 1959 in order to scan and present the unique histogram data in each of the 83 photographs.
The histogram's reduced graphical elements served as raw material for new arrangements, and communicated a one-to-one relationship between Frank’s somber diagnosis of the country with his camera, and the now common diagnostic tool for determining the quality and value of a photographic exposure.
What was revealed to me in the histograms—also in stark black and white—were images whose subjects were pushed to the extremes of exposure, and a middle ground that was mostly vacant.
Robert Frank’s “The Americans”
Stack of 83 images in book order
Nine views of Detroit
American Flag
Essay for The Histograms
I was invited to share some of my thoughts regarding this project and the photographs they referenced for the media arts journal In the In-Between.
“Here was a book that I felt I knew quite well: once in a while as a series of intelligent and jarring non-fictions rhythmically sequenced, sometimes as the record of circumnavigations involving the open road and closed-off peoples, always as the body of work to confront for those who wanted a turn at taking the American picture.”
Download the images
If you are interested in working the the histograms for whatever reason, feel free! Clicking the button will download a zipped file with 83 jpegs sized at 1000x1000 pixels. The file names include the image titles used by Robert Frank. Size of the compressed file is approximately 4mb.
If you do something fun and want to share, send me an email. If there’s a critical mass, I’ll make a little gallery on this page for them.
