The article on Robert Frank by Charlie LeDuff in the April issue of Vanity Fair has been seen on a number of photo blogs. But it is worth repeating. Two things: one, it is a marvelous piece and 2.) if you are a young photographer longing for fame and looking forward to your serene days as an old photographer don’t read this piece and don’t let Charlie LeDuff anywhere near you.

It looks as though Robert Frank’s lifelong ethic of brutal honesty and a lack of sentimentality has circled back to bite him in the ass, so to speak. Read the entire article at

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/04/frank200804

In the early 60s in my photo school days, I would traipse around Los Angeles trying to re-photograph the photos Frank made in that city. I guess I thought if I stood in Robert Frank’s shoes, I would be able to see like Robert Frank if only for a moment. But finding where Robert Frank stood proved to be fiendishly difficult, and he didn’t help by giving street names under his photos. Long after I had given up this quixotic quest, I was standing on a street corner in LA and I looked up to see a statue of St. Francis. But it wasn’t a Robert Frank picture: the light was different, the time was different, and I wasn’t Robert Frank!

St. Francis from ‘The Americans’ remains one of my favorites.

The school was the Art Center College of Art and Design which is now in Pasadena. In 1962 it was still on Wilshire Boulevard and was simply called the Art Center School. I think one reason I didn’t stay there for more than a year was because none of my professors had ever heard of Robert Frank. When I showed one of them ‘the Americans’ he said “My kid takes better pictures than this”.

Mark L. Power, Los Angeles, 1962

A picture from my school days…can you tell who my influence was?

Another Frank story: One of my teen-age loves was a beautiful Argentinian girl; well, half-Argentinian; her mother was American. Let’s call her Maria. She lived in Manhattan with her family and once when I was there visiting her, we agreed to meet in the village for dinner. I’ll be meeting a friend in such and such an apartment, she said, then I’ll see you at the restaurant at six. When she didn’t show up at at 6:45, I decided to go to the apartment she mentioned and see what had happened to her. The name scribbled under the mailbox said “Robert Frank”. Do you know who this is? I asked someone in the lobby. I think he’s a photographer, was the answer. Did I mention the year was 1959? It was a year or two before ‘The Americans’ knocked photography off its tracks. I stopped at the door because I could hear Maria’s voice, then another male voice. You know the rest. I didn’t knock; I just went away. Later on even though we had become more than friends, I never mentioned this episode to Maria and she never brought it up either although she once casually said she knew Robert Frank. That was a year or two after ‘The Americans’ had appeared and by then everyone knew Robert Frank.