haddonstuff  -  where underachievement is a badge of honour

Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he 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    

JACK KEROUAC

Frank would intentionally lose focus, his work was shadowy and grainy, full of unconventional cropping
and angles. He broke the rules in order to be true to his vision of America.

ELIZABETH KUNREUTHER

'I think I always had a cold eye', he says, 'I always saw things realistically. But, it's also easier to show the darkness
than the joy of life. Life is not beautiful all the time. Life can be good, then you lie down, and stare up at the ceiling,
 and the sadness falls on you. Things move on, time passes, people go away, and sometimes they don't come back.'

'The kind of photography I did is gone,' he says. 'It's old. There's no point in it anymore for me, and
I get no satisfaction from trying to do it.' He says this without bitterness or regret, but with a sad
 matter-of-factness as ingrained as the lines on his face. 'There are too many pictures now. It's
overwhelming. A flood of images that passes by, and says, "why should we remember anything?"
 There is too much to remember now, too much to take in.'

ROBERT FRANK