Costas Spathis’ Waiting for the Bus (2023, Photography) transforms a mundane phrase into a surreal and visually poetic tableau. In the image, a line of women sits at the edge of a swimming pool, their forms duplicated through the shimmering surface of the water. The distortion elongates their limbs and multiplies their figures, creating the illusion of rhythmic repetition—like a choreographed procession frozen between reality and dream.

The composition is meticulously balanced: the turquoise expanse of the pool dominates the frame, while the pale wall below emphasizes the contrast between grounded solidity and liquid instability. The figures, dressed in bright swimsuits and caps, echo the aesthetics of synchronized swimming, yet the title humorously situates them in the everyday act of waiting for a bus—a deliberate disjunction between the ordinary and the fantastical.

Through reflection and repetition, Waiting for the Bus blurs the boundaries between body and water, individuality and collectivity. Spathis draws attention to perception itself, reminding viewers that reality is always refracted, layered, and unstable. The result is an image that is playful yet uncanny—an everyday metaphor elevated into an elegant, surreal meditation on time, movement, and expectation.