On the face to it, this picture is pretty unremarkable. The woman at the front is cut off, back of a mans head not much going on and everyone is on their phone – except for the two on the left. They struck up a conversation on the train station platform after the young lady asked the man if he had the train line app to see which train would get her in to her stop quickest. He didn’t have a smart phone but did have one thing – experience.

I had been out taking pictures all day in the freeing cold at a homes for people protest and listened, shivering, as they traded stories about their day, their plans for the weekend and their hopes and dreams for the future. They then boarded the train together and continued their conversation. I noticed the train was packed with people, in the assumed position; heads down, squinting into a tiny box of lights, earphones in – no doubt after a long day looking at a computer screen and oblivious to the world around them.

How many ‘missed moments’ will occur because we had to check our Facebook for our friends latest post, or our fave celebs latest tweets? Life is an endless series of moments and we risk missing them by being disconnected from the world around us. Technology has enabled us to be more connected and wider connected than ever before but it is disconnecting us at a closer, more intimate level more than ever.

Ironically I took my phone and camera out to capture this ‘missed moment’ as the train began to empty, maybe missing my own moment whilst I tweeted and took the picture, but I thought it was one I had to take. More often than not, I let pictures pass rather than take them because I don’t feel every moment needs to captured, just experienced. We can look through our viewfinder too often and for too long and not actually see the world around us. Sometimes a chat is everything.

An emptying train, smart phone users and a lovely conversation