Robert Frank and Achievement

We looked at some of the images in Robert Frank's photo book called 'The Americans'. Robert Frank is a Swiss photographer who moved to America after the second world war because of the threat of Nazism affecting his understanding of oppression.

On the front cover we can see one of the most famous images which shows the segregation between white and black people on a bus, this was a big issue in 1950's America. Frank, like many Photographer didnt ask the people on the bus to pose, he simply took the picture as the bus drove past and this allowed us to see what life was really like in 50's America.

We were given the task to go around college and take images of what we thought showed achievement.This was quite a difficult task so I had to be very imaginative and creative. Here are some of my images:

My first image clearly shows achievement as we see a football trophy which the college had won during a womens tournament, you can also see a picture of the team behind it. I used a low aperture when taking this image because I wanted the background to be out of focus because the trophy is the main subject within the image, so therefore by making it the only thing in focus it would stand out more. 

 My next photo is more a 'out of the box' and humorous approach to show achievement. I saw this sign and all the bikes lined up next to it and I suddenly thought "achievement of dismounting their cycles". Again I used a low aperture to mainly focus on the sign leaving the bikes out of focus, however, we can still see that they're bikes.

 Now you might be thinking how does a ladybird show achievement? Well if you think about it in more depth, look at the amount of spots it has. The more spots a ladybird has, the older it is and this here lady bird has lots of spots, therefore showing us it's quite old. So technically you could class this as achievement, living a long life in ladybird years because I don't think anymore spots will fit on this ladybirds back!

For my final image again you have to be more imaginative as to how it shows achievement. Well, I think this berry shows achievement as its the last berry left hanging! All the other berries have fallen off and were left to rot or get eaten by some hungry bird, but this wee berry is still fighting strong! This image also shows my personal achievement as I managed to capture the water droplet hanging off the berry before it dripped off! :-) yaay go me!!