Ritesh Uttamchandani is deputy photo editor at a news magazine, but has none of that mobile-phone-photography-is-not-real-photography disdain when he speaks of the medium. “I can use Instagram to take inane pictures of my caramel custard, or to capture a physically-challenged man I meet outside Churchgate station who was there because that’s the only station to have a Western-style toilet,” he shrugs.

In #traindiaries, Anushree Fadnavis’ photographs the many moods of women commuters in Mumbai local trains. Tempers flying, women who grin and bear it all, some who lose patience when frequently poked in the shoulder by those who want to know where they will disembark — Fadnavis’ smartphone is there to capture it all Fadnavis captures a mother who finds a way to keep her sleeping child close and operate her mobile phone at the same time

Uttamchandani knows just how much the diminutive lens of a smartphone camera can capture compared to the formidable black bulk of a DSLR. So, on August 19, he launched the Katha Collective, to showcase Instagrammars who would photograph short and long photo essays exclusively with their phone cameras.