Running Legs, New York, from the picture essay New York

Lisette Model came to the United States in 1938, having previously studied music in her native Austria and worked as a photographer in Vienna, Paris, and Nice. She quickly fell in love with New York City and set out to capture its glamorous bustle and energy with her handheld camera. Model took hundreds of photographs of the street life and storefronts of her adopted city, reveling in its fleeting reflections and constant state of flux. Shot from a very low angle, this softly blurred image of the legs of a woman in high heels and an American flag flying across the street is a striking example of the many sidewalk pictures Model made during the early 1940s.