This is an unusual image in the oeuvre of a photographer known chiefly for a confrontational style that made instances from everyday life on the street look like snippets from a well-choreographed farce. Rather than dancing about to the rhythm of urban life, these people seem suspended for eternity as static weights in a three-dimensional balancing game predicated on their own insubstantial shadows. If Winogrand's normal mode was one of witty graphic innovation, here he probes the tragic undertones in life's dark comedy.

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