‘I liked how her expressiveness matches her bold hair’: Lucía Mara’s best phone picture

The Argentinian photographer was drawn to capture a stranger's self-expression on a trip to New York

Seconds before this was taken, Lucia Mara had chased the woman down New York's Third Avenue. It was the Argentinian photographer's last day in the city and she was running late to a meeting before her flight home to Buenos Aires.

It was a sunny October day, bright after a night of rain, and the early afternoon light had illuminated the woman's violet hair just as Mara, who studied photography and film at the University of California, passed by. She abandoned thoughts of her meeting and took off in pursuit, then, breathless, requested permission to take a photo. The woman, she says, was ecstatic".