They didn't know they were icons...

June 27, 2008 7:45 AM

Over a half century ago, legendary Swiss photographer Robert Frank snapped their picture as he was wrapping up what would become a groundbreaking outsider's perspective on the U.S., his two-year photo project entitled simply The Americans (previously on MeFi). 51 years later, now that the Indianapolis Museum of Art is opening TODAY an exhibit pairing all of Frank's 83 images from The Americans together with the original scroll of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," friends and relatives have identified the couple who had never known they were so iconic! (via)
posted by Misciel (20 comments total)

When I'm 76, this is going to happen to me all the time.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 8:20 AM on June 27, 2008 [2 favorites]

A friend of mine was interviewing for a job when she noticed a picture on the interviewer's wall. It was a 5x7 photo of a massive pro-choice rally at the US Capitol, and right there in the middle, behind a large banner, yelling and gesticulating, the centerpiece of the shot, was my friend. She got the job.
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:38 AM on June 27, 2008 [4 favorites]

Yay, the IMA! I try to go there whenever I'm in town. Sometimes they hang my mother's paintings.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 9:22 AM on June 27, 2008

What an awesome story! Thank you for sharing!
posted by headspace at 9:22 AM on June 27, 2008

I dunno, cool points all around. I wouldn't mind having a print of that photo.
posted by The Power Nap at 9:32 AM on June 27, 2008

Props to IMA. It's one of the country's best overlooked museums. Well worth a visit when you are in town. Drop-dead beautiful location, too.

As for the photo...cool pic...but, honestly, I had never seen it before. Is it truly as "iconic" as the story purports? I mean, outside of Indianapolis...
posted by Thorzdad at 9:40 AM on June 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

Great story, and I hope they give her a copy of the book. (But like Thorzdad, I was surprised to see the "iconic" shot for the first time.)
posted by languagehat at 10:39 AM on June 27, 2008

Right, I've never seen that photo before -- I question just how iconic it is. But it's a great photo, and a great story.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:39 AM on June 27, 2008

I used to live around the corner from the Chinese Theater in Hollwyood, and probably walked past it a million times. I know I was accidentally captured in hundreds of photosgraphs taken by tourists. I often wondered if groups of Japanese people, looking at each other's travel photos, ever said OH MY GOD, THAT EXACT SAME GUY IS IN MY PHOTO. (In Japanese, of course.)

On my darker days, I like to imagine an international cult has sprung up around me. And one day they will find me and make me their kind. I guess I might have to wait until I'm 76, though.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:41 AM on June 27, 2008

You're one of my kind, Astro Zombie.
posted by cgc373 at 10:49 AM on June 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

Man, that's a great story and a great picture.

For some reason I was reminded of Teri Horton and her Pollock painting, but the one that always cracks me up is how Claud Johnson was vindicated by Eula Mae Williams when he claimed to be Robert Johnson's son (just read the whole story).
posted by sleepy pete at 10:50 AM on June 27, 2008

whoops, read the whole story or skip to the Q & A with Williams. I didn't really mean to tell y'all what to do.
posted by sleepy pete at 10:53 AM on June 27, 2008

A similar thing happened in Afghanistan a few years ago.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:53 AM on June 27, 2008

Astro Zombie, I work across the street from the Capitol, and have often wondered the same thing about myself. I was, in fact, once interviewed by a South Korean TV crew--I'm thinking I'm kind of a pop culture figure over there now.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:44 AM on June 27, 2008

I saw another "where are they now" thing based one of of these Indiana photos by Frank, I think in Smithsonian, fairly recently. My Google-fu is weak today, though. It was another one of the biker pics, a fairly well known image of a couple of vulpine young men looking at the camera.
posted by mwhybark at 11:55 AM on June 27, 2008

It's weird: I was a Photo major in university, where I sat through countless presentations of his work; I live just a few hours' drive from his reclusive hideaway, and I even know a few people who have been there, talked to him, and lived to tell the tale. But never, ever--not even for a moment--did I ever realize that Robert Frank was Swiss.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:35 PM on June 27, 2008

Time to ask your college for a refund?
posted by matteo at 3:33 PM on June 27, 2008

To me, the most poignant line, via Telester: "After that I didn't do much riding. I started having children."
posted by localroger at 4:17 PM on June 27, 2008

Time to ask your college for a refund?
Nah. It's not their fault that the campus is surrounded by pubs and clouded in pot smoke.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:14 PM on June 27, 2008

It's weird: I was a Photo major in university, where I sat through countless presentations of his work; I live just a few hours' drive from his reclusive hideaway, and I even know a few people who have been there, talked to him, and lived to tell the tale. But never, ever--not even for a moment--did I ever realize that Robert Frank was Swiss.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:35 PM on June 27 [+] [!

Probably b/c your instructor didn't make note of his nationality and pronounced his name "Fraynk" and not "Fraahnk"; a lot of photo teachers don't go beyond the surface.
posted by beelzbubba at 9:56 PM on June 27, 2008