Public street dancing in Moscow in 1947

Two women dance together in a packed Moscow square, frozen mid-motion by Robert Capa, one of the twentieth century's most celebrated war photographers. The black and white image was made in 1947, only two years after World War II ended, while Capa traveled across the Soviet Union with the novelist John Steinbeck. Together they recorded ordinary life behind what would soon be called the Iron Curtain, and their journey became the book "A Russian Journal." The woman wearing the headscarf stares straight at the camera, her face difficult to read, while her partner turns her gaze somewhere off to the left.

The lasting power of this picture comes from its plain human warmth. The war had claimed millions of Soviet men, so women dancing together at public gatherings was a familiar sight. Behind the pair, a sea of faces reaches back into the crowd, anchoring the moment in a specific time and place. Capa built his reputation on catching real feeling in fleeting, unposed seconds, and here he swapped the front lines for a street celebration, capturing people doing something as simple as trying to enjoy themselves again after years of loss.