At first glance, Garry Winogrand's photograph Centennial Ball, Metropolitan Museum, New York (1969) is a study of organized chaos. The massive composition, with its high-contrast lighting, captures the drama and excitement of the gala. A woman in a white dress visually dominates the image as she walks through a crowd of men dressed in black. The flash illuminates her conventionally feminine features: her beehive hairstyle, jewel-encrusted dress and flawless makeup. It's chic, seductive and noteworthy; however, even though she conforms to '60s and '70s standards of attractiveness, her performance conveys a sense of looseness and abandon. In contrast to the glamorous atmosphere, she appears drunk, her hips are brazenly tilted and her dress is torn, suggesting a lack of undergarments. The ironic tension between these elements and the elite milieu characterizes her as an uninhibited and dynamic personality, caught at the center of what should be a dignified party. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Centennial Ball hints at an incongruity between traditional femininity and the uncertainty of women's emerging freedom of expression. The torn bodice of the woman's dress hangs from the collar, implying a lack of both physical and social restraint. In contrast to the men in suits, captured with tight-lipped smiles and open-mouthed self-assurance, who surround her, she seems exposed and vulnerable. Yet his body language suggests no vulnerability; announces audacity. His body is angled, his hips shift in one direction and his shoulders slope in another. Its sinuous shape conveys directional movement, a sense of dynamism. All the men lean or move to the right, but the woman in white leans and moves to the left. She heads in opposition to a male-dominated area (both visually and socially) with confidence and determination. The image simultaneously shows a constraint on that freedom. As brightly lit and prominent as the woman appears, the black clothing surrounding her limits every plane of vision. A man's arm frames the lower left of the image, cutting across the woman's legs and ending at her hips. From the viewer's perspective, his body visually, if not physically, limits his movements. In the spaces left between the men emerge glimpses of various hands, the backs of heads, gleaming shoulders and the sides of women's faces. It is impossible to say who is who or what belongs to whom. Each woman, in fact, becomes an assemblage of interchangeable parts because their physical forms are indistinguishable and dismembered. The collar of the woman's dress in the center echoes both sides of this tension. While the barely contained bodice highlights a loss of control, the collar holding her dress together tightly encircles her neck. It appears, paradoxically, free and not free. Her freedom of physical expression is strictly limited by the society, presented as predominantly male, that surrounds her. The photograph exposes the tension between two opposing forces during this era: a newfound freedom of dress and confidence (both social and sexual) gaining momentum alongside traditional norms of femininity.