Reflecting On The Meltdown

Getty photographer Mario Tama sends in this evocative image from yesterday’s demonstration in New York’s financial district.

It captures a two-day anti-capitalist rally protesting the Wall Street bailout. Through the use of reflection (in this photo of a restaurant, as well as this one playing the street off against a corporate lobby), Mario portrays America’s class schism (note the guy in the lime-colored reflective vest overlapped with the guy in the jacket with the wristwatch); America flip-flopping between awareness and denial; and the strange disconnect these days between crisis and “business as usual.”

Mario’s photos from New Orleans will be the feature of a BAGnewSALON, our on-line discussion series, here tomorrow.

(image: Mario Tama/Getty Images. New York. April 3, 2009)