New Year's Eve, American Legion, Bangor, Pennsylvania 1980

This grainy black and white photograph by Larry Fink captures a New Year's Eve celebration at the American Legion in Bangor, Pennsylvania. It feels like a moment pulled from the stream of life, a slice of realness. I imagine Fink moving through the crowd, camera in hand, zeroing in on these figures caught up in the revelry. What was he thinking as he framed this shot? The embrace of the couple, the woman in the foreground with her knowing gaze... it's like a scene from a movie, full of unspoken stories. The high contrast adds to the immediacy, the rawness of the moment. You can almost feel the press of the crowd, the energy of the party. It's photography as a form of social commentary, but also, I think, a kind of empathy. Fink is looking, really looking, at these people and finding something beautiful in their ordinary lives.