How Robert Frank's Vision Influenced And Inspired Generations Of Photographers

In an era when photographs are produced by the hundreds of thousands every second, the death of photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank on Monday presents an opportunity: not only to mourn him, but to honor an artist who taught many of us how to see the world around us more discretely, frame by intimate frame.

With his Leica, 35 mm black-and-white film, quick reflexes and piercing vision, Frank is perhaps one of the most influential photographers of all time. His most famous work, published in the 1959 book The Americans, continues to serve as a touchstone and template for generations of visual reporters.

At the time, critics thought the America depicted in his images was distorted, by his camera and his viewpoint.

His America was rough around the edges: not the manicured suburbs of TV or magazines but rather well-worn city streets and desolate rural patches dotted with people who were brown and black