Waiter navigating the flooded Piazza San Marco

A photorealistic candid street photograph taken from Piazza San Marco during acqua alta, shot from about eight meters away at chest height, the photographer also standing in the water.
Knee-deep floodwater covers the entire square, completely flat and still, no wind, no ripples except where people move through it. A waiter in his forties wades across the middle of the piazza in tall green rubber boots, white shirt with the sleeves rolled, a long black apron tied at the waist and now soaked dark at the hem where it drags the surface. He carries a small round tray at shoulder height with THREE espresso cups on saucers in perfect balance, his free arm out slightly for counterweight, his wading stride long and careful, the water parting around his shins in a slow V. His face is entirely matter of fact. He is not amused, not annoyed, not making a point. He is delivering coffee.
Behind him the Basilica di San Marco rises with its domes, arches and mosaic facade, and the whole of it is MIRRORED in the still water across the lower half of the frame. Not a clean mirror but a real one, very slightly softened, broken only where the waiter's legs and his wake disturb it. The campanile's base stands in water. The arcade columns of the Procuratie repeat themselves downward in the reflection. The square has become a shallow lagoon with a cathedral on both sides of the waterline.
Just to one side of him, a café chair stands half submerged, its seat a few centimeters above the surface, the rest of its frame visible through the clear water below. A pigeon has just landed on the wet seatback, wings still half open in the last beat before folding, feet gripping, head cocked. Two more chairs and a small round table stand abandoned nearby, their legs distorted by refraction where they enter the water.
Low morning light comes in across the square from one side, warm and raking, catching the top of the water surface, the waiter's white shirt, the pigeon's wings, and the upper facade of the basilica, while the arcades stay in cool blue shadow. The wooden passerelle walkways are visible off to one side, several already underwater. A handful of other people are scattered across the distance in boots and rolled trousers, one couple laughing, one man photographing his own submerged shoes. Nobody is panicking. This happens.
Shot at 35mm f/4, ISO 400, 1/500s on a mirrorless camera. The waiter, the tray, the pigeon and the near reflections are sharp, the basilica slightly softer with distance, the far end of the square softening into morning haze. The fast shutter freezes the pigeon's half-open wings and the small bow wave at the waiter's boots. Medium-deep depth of field keeps both the real world and its reflection readable at the same time.
The palette is cool and silver overall — grey-green floodwater, pale stone, blue shadow under the arcades — warmed by the low raking sun on the white shirt, the pale marble and the water's surface. No legible text anywhere, no café signage, no menu boards.
The composition puts the waiter at the left third mid-stride with his tray at the upper-left, the half-drowned chair and the landing pigeon at the right third, and the basilica's reflection running across the bottom of the frame underneath both of them. The eye goes to the three espressos held impossibly level above a flooded square, then finds the pigeon, then falls into the reflection and realizes the whole lower half of the picture is upside down. The mood is quiet deadpan: a city doing its job while standing in the sea.