The Americans (Robert Frank)

Between 1955 and 1957 Robert Frank drove across the United States with a Leica, exposing some 28,000 frames that became 83 pictures: The Americans. Grainy, tilted, "wrong" by the era's standards — and it rewired what photography could say. The trolley window in New Orleans, the jukebox glow, the flags: a portrait of a country that America itself hadn't noticed.

Frank worked handheld, fast and unnoticed — the Leica method taken past journalism into something personal and literary. Nearly every documentary photographer since works in its shadow. The images are copyrighted (June Leaf/Frank estate), so we link to the book rather than reproduce them.