Second Readings

The readings about the years leading up to Robert Frank's photobook was an interesting read explaining the what really pushed him into his concept of The Americans. This also in some ways explained out why he choose to the particular order of images displayed in his book, and the fact that after so many reprints he still stays with the same sequencing just shows how important the order was to him. It talks about how he was simply documenting his experiences and then of how he came to perceive the US, which he tried to accomplish in a non judgmental way.

I really enjoyed the reading about the Japanese photobooks and looking at the way the images were arranged on the page. It was interesting how much their culture had an impact on the design of the books. The reading helped explain it more so why at a first glance the layout seems like a lot to handle. However after finishing the article and studying the images again, they began to have more rhythm and working consistency then I had thought when I just looked at the images. I liked seeing the difference of Robert Frank's book and the japanese books, because one is of Robert Frank being an outsider looking into a culture, and the other is of an outside viewer looking into an photographer inside the culture.