WWII, August 1944, Shoes Dropped by Allies Behind the Front Line to Fighting after 1944

This photograph, WWII, August 1944, Shoes Dropped by Allies Behind the Front Line to Fighting, was taken by Constance Stuart Larrabee. It's a black and white image, giving it an immediacy and a sense of history unfolding right before your eyes. I look at this person, probably exhausted, sitting there with their rifle, and I imagine Larrabee, the photographer, trying to capture a moment of rest amidst the chaos of war. I wonder what she was thinking, what she felt, to be so close to such a moment. There's something about the contrast between the rough, worn-out clogs and the new boots that gets me. It's like a visual metaphor for the transition, the hope for something better amidst the grit and hardship. The shoes, the boots, the wood: these objects have this incredible texture. The grain of the wood, the leather of the boots. Each a story about touch, about the body, about labor. Photography, like painting, can be a conversation, a kind of call and response across time. Larrabee has, in her way, made a gesture that still communicates feeling and meaning today. So many other artists are trying to express what it’s like to be alive.