Explore the site, http://www.yale.edu/amstud/r66/fr1.html and answer the following.

Compare Frank’s and Weegee’s depictions of Fourth of July celebrations on Coney Island.  What does each photographer decide to focus their lens on?  What is the general sentiment (or feeling) in each image?  What does a Fourth of July celebration seem to symbolize, and more importantly reveal about America, to each of the photographers?

Rosenthal’s image of troops raising the flag on a strategic Japanese military point became an icon of WWII and significantly gained much needed support for the war effort.  Compare this image to Robert Frank’s Parade, Hoboken, New York.  In each of these images, the flag becomes a character.  Evaluate what the flag represents in each of these contexts.  Consider the framing of the image, what is represented vs. what is omitted, and camera angle.  How does the form of each image strengthen its message?

Compare Ansel Adams’s image of the American road with Robert Frank’s.  What subtle differences are apparent?  How do you imagine each photographer felt about that road?  Each of these roads heads west.  What sense of the American West does each image convey? 

Considering the context and period in which all of the photos considered for this worksheet was made, what does the point of view expressed by the photographer convey (or perhaps fail to convey) about American culture at that time?

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