James Van Der Zee is Black photographer who was based out of New York. He started working as a photographer during the Harlem Renaissance. Because of this time period, his early work set out to document and reconstruct the perception of black people. His portraits aimed to change social expectations for who black people are and could be. This photograph is titled "Raccoon Couple in Car," (1932). It is one of his most recognizable.

The image shows two people, a white woman and a black man, in a car in New York City. The man is in a fancy, shiny convertible, which considering the year this was taken, is not a common sight. Black people weren't expected to be able to afford such things. The man is also dressed in a fur coat and hat, which gives off this swagger. The woman next to him is also dressed in a similar fur coat, with nice shoes. Three residential New York buildings are seen in the back, hinting that this is just in a neighborhood, a natural setting. And the woman being white carries it's own implications. At a time where racism was far more prevalent, to have a white woman with a Black man meant that in no sense are Black men lesser than white men.

What Van Der Zee accomplished with this image coincides with what the Harlem Renaissance was about. Black people were reinventing what it meant to be Black in America, and this picture shows that they are just as capable of high class indicators. It may not seem that revolutionary now, but for the time it worked to rebuild the image of a Black American. A simple portrait that captures this movement.

And from a technical standpoint, the photograph is framed in an interesting way. The image shows us the entirety of the woman. The middle and lower thirds are dedicated to the subject, with the top third providing context to where it was taken. The shiny car reflects a lot of light, which tells the viewer it's new and expensive. The convertible top solidifies that this is a pricey vehicle, and having the man in the driver's seat, looking at the camera nonchalantly, adds a mood or feeling of confidence.