What Are We Looking at?

Like a white coffin's buoyancy forcing it to float to the surface, part of a crosswalk line spears the image from below, no longer functioning as intended, submerged in the murky water as it is. Its converging perspective points us in the direction of a green light, though the street seems abandoned by traffic, punctuated by a couple of parked cars. Flooding is nothing new. Cartier Bresson's image, Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris 1932, is considered to be among photographs that have pioneered frozen action images at just the right moment, the “decisive moment,” with great tension and compositional complexity. While this is easier to achieve with modern cameras and has, in many respects, “already been done,” this does not take away from Kravits' exploration of his city. In fact he doubles down by supplying the tension of a near impact by a foot on the water as in Bresson's image of the man skipping across the watery surface. Rather than by the heel, this protagonist is in the process of pulling his toe from the water.

How Can the Image Be Interpreted?

As we know the world is experiencing climate change. We don't budget for infrastructure, not to speak of anticipatable redundancies to accommodate future needs, but rather just maintain its bare bones functionality. Our lives, in that sense, are reactive, rather than proactive. As a society we live on borrowed time. We pay off the inflated interest on our credit cards, rather than paying off the balance. We “maintain” an inadequate bridge rather than replacing it. We treat ourselves to what we deserve rather than what we can afford. Retail therapy is endemic.

Conclusion

The other shoe is going to drop. We know it. But as long as we can keep out of the water with whatever acrobatics are necessary, the final toll matters not. To have enjoyed ourselves while it was still possible seems like a great idea, and in fact, anything else would be stupid.

Therein lies the rub for me in this photograph. Anything else would be stupid and I know the feeling well. We all do. Arriving with relatively dry shoes after the fun of circumnavigating urban waterlogged swamps is, after all, a satisfying experience and an achievement in and of itself.

We have reached a point where traversing from point A to B is meaningful. If it is, this should be for reasons other than keeping our feet dry or avoiding getting splashed by a passing car. Yet, increasingly, winning such small odds provides a sense of satisfaction. To me Kravits' image dynamically alerts us to this sense of success. Crossing the road did not used to be considered a success. This image playfully, beautifully, and darkly suggests otherwise.