Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 20 September 2020

As photographers it can be difficult to know when not to take a photograph. Sometimes these moments are out of our control, perhaps based on ethical, moral or religious grounds. When I look back at the times I chose not to take a photograph one moment stands apart from the others. It was early morning and I was on a train enroute to my job at a paparazzi photo agency. I had a window seat, which was unusual and I noticed her immediately. It was the billowing blue floral dress that caught my eye, it was so summery, so joyous and yet the weather was bleak, cold, dark and it was pouring with rain. Everyone else on the arriving platform was dressed in drab dark clothes, black rain coats and umbrellas braced against the driving rain. Then she was gone… and our train screeched to a stop. Passengers on the both platform and on the train were screaming, there was panic in the air. The driver announced that there had been an accident and all passengers should disembark and walk over the bridge to the next platform to continue their journey. I stepped from the train, the smell hit me as soon as the doors opened, people were fainting sinking into the puddles, someone shouted that they had seen her jump. After walking away from the train in the tsunami of passengers, I turned around and I walked back. I reached the carriage and then I got down on my hands and knees to look, once there, I was frozen, I could not move. A fleeting thought went through my mind, to reach for my camera, but I could not, I knew even in this moment of shock and horror that there was no place for it. After what seemed like hours, the station master came over to me, he bent down too and looked into my streaming eyes ‘come on love, let me help you up’, he said. I stood up with his support and walked over the bridge to the next platform, as I walked down the steps I saw one of her legs, below the knee, on the other track. Another train pulled in and I got on and I went to work.  Photographs Not Taken is a collection of photographers’ essays I have read this week edited by Will Steacy. It contains 62 accounts by prestigious photographers, including Jim Goldberg, Emmet Gowin, Todd Hido, Nadav Kander, Mary Ellen Mark, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Sylvia Plachy, Mark Power, Alessandra Sanguinetti, to name a few, of a moment when they too chose not to take a photograph, I highly recommend it, it soothed me this week.

Enjoy our mobile photography and art showcase, it’s actually full of glorious images that have been taken.

Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to our showcase this week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group, here. You can also submit images to our Instagram tag for this section #theappwhisperer.

Rejane Rubino, Jennifer Graham, @accidentalartist, Eliza Badoiu, Roberta Mitchell, Catherine Caddigan, Carlos Agapito, Janis Brandenburg Lee, Dale Botha, Emanuel Faria, Laila, Diane Neubauer, Dina Alfasi, Cynthia Nicholson, Jill Lian, @eveofthefuture, @withflowersinheriphone, @Bridget Robertson, Lorenka Campos, Liliana Schwitter, Suite116, Gianluca Ricoveri, Jane Schultz, Clint Cline, Hanni K, Jun Yamaguchi, Deborah McMillion, Debara Splendorio, Rita Colantonio, Jon Arne Foss, Deborah Field, anandamoy chatterji