‘Monochrome is a way of finding poetry in everyday life’: Mélissa David’s best phone picture

<p>Strangers passing by an image of a girl holding balloons gave the French photographer an opportunity to play with shadows</p><p>The public square in front of Paris’s city hall was undergoing construction work when Mélissa David took this photograph as she passed by en route to an appointment. She had taken her camera along in the hope of taking some pictures, but when she realised she had forgotten to charge the batteries, she used her phone instead.</p><p>“It seemed like an ordinary sunny day in Paris, the city full of busy people,” the French photographer recalls. “There were these big panels with images printed on them installed in front of the city hall to shield some of the building work. The light was beautiful, and I&nbsp;wanted to capture the strong shadows of these strangers passing by around the girl with the balloons.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/20/melissa-david-best-phone-picture">Continue reading...</a>