portable

Robert Frank was a father of 35mm photography.

Father of 35 mm photography

Robert Frank with his wife June Leaf. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe.

Annie Leibovitz [born 1949] includes Robert Frank in the ranks of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Portable, personalized reportage.

An earlier reference to Frank here; to Henri Cartier-Bresson here.

black and white

"Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected."

A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Robert Frank [born 1924] travelled across post World War II America documenting his adopted country.

though he had been trained in a rigorous Swiss tradition that aspired to photographic perfectionism, Frank's free-wheeling odyssey echoed the spontaneity of Abstract Expressionist art and Beat poetry.

Like Jackson Pollock [1912-1956], he stood in the middle of the picture; he was released from the conventions of traditional picture making.

Jack Kerouac [1922-1969] described Frank's qualities as "agility, mystery, genius and secret strangeness."