You missed me; but I shot you.

Sometimes its quirky-looking strangers. Often its underground riders, or just kids in the neighborhood.

One spring afternoon, a crowd of giggling high-schoolers in white shirts and ripped jeans are gathered in front of the pizza parlor. None of them seems to see me standing nearby. I ask, “hey girls, whose pants are the most torn”?

In a nanosecond, they line themselves up for a photo. Toes forward, knees correctly bent into position, lips puckered. Just shoot me. Permission granted; I lift my Iphone.

On the subway my photo subjects assume I’m reading on my phone. Lost in thought between stations, these riders don’t notice me as I angle my camera view up from my lap and click on their faces.

I might approach a man on the street and ask, directly, “Mind if I take a quick picture?” Maybe the pattern on his shorts matches his fuzzy dog. Or I want to capture his stubble, or his sneer. He will never return my gaze, ask my intent, or show more than a hint of curiosity about the purpose of my photo. I point. And shoot.

Inevitably, there’s that time in life when women feel they’re becoming invisible. It rarely arrives with a single incident. It’s an advancing feeling. Like mold in the shower, you know it’s there, growing in the corners, half present, under the color-safe conditioner. A recent Atlantic article on this phenomenon whipped quickly around the internet; its viral spread fueled by boomer-to-boomer sharing. The headline, The Invisibility of Older Women, seemed to linger on my Facebook feed for weeks, stuck there via demographic profiling.

For me, I think that undefined, but unavoidable, time has come. And it’s no surprise. I was warned. By an obvious source. Mom.

A widow at 48, my mother was a chic Manhattanite with a business career. She did not fit the profile of a homemaker sidelined in the ‘burbs when her husband left for the office. Nor was she rudderless when he died. She travelled at the front of the plane on corporate trips to Europe. She had tickets to theatre, concerts, the ballet, movies.

But she never had a steady male partner again. And for years when she went out to a busy restaurant with her girlfriends she spoke up when led, all too often, to a back table. She lamented that “the ladies” were forever being seated by the restroom or the bussing station.

More and more in small, quietly creeping ways, I am learning firsthand what that treatment felt like and why it got under my mom’s skin. Thankfully, since she came of age, and then aged herself, women’s lives have improved and its less certain that an all-female 50+ party will be shepherded to the rear of restaurants, That’s progress…in a way.

But the sense of being officially set out of view that she described occurs today in other forms. I know it when I see it. And I am seeing it, and feeling it, a lot more often. At work (hard to get any), inside public places (excuse me, but I was already in line), in restaurants (can you please take our order), and on city streets (I’m walking here).

Yet, here’s the crazy thing.

Social media is changing my outlook toward the encroaching invisible world — for the better! That’s because I’ve weaponized it. The ability to vanish is my new creative spear. And I’m taking aim.

“Hey, can I just get a quick shot of you guys,” I say to my photo targets wherever I spot them in public.

They stop. They preen. They behave is if my phone-in-hand is their own, and stand for a selfie — by proxy. They are ever-ready for their close-up. Some are overdressed; others decidedly under. I will admire their blue hair, or praise some statement-making accessory. Kitten heels. Saggy pants. Even the disinterested or distracted quickly fall into a pose formation, lured by a tug on their ego and lulled by my apparently inconsequential persona. They consent. With a military-like compliance they even say: “Yes Ma’am.”

I take their picture. No questions asked.

The people I see - of any gender or generation - living their daily lives, simply let me observe them — and shoot them – with an iPhone. They don’t see me as someone who will edit… or manipulate…the final digital frame to my liking, perhaps brighten the scene with AfterLite, retouch them via FaceTune or Bestie, then post their image on Instagram with a caption of my choice.

App ready? Social savvy? They don’t see me that way. Or any way.

This indifference shifts the balance of power to my advantage. When people don’t focus on me while I focus on them, victory is mine! My photos, taken straight on, or as a stealth operation, are my winnings -- to keep or share.

These strangers who pay me no mind are now my enablers. They’re helping me fill my own artistic space, show I have an eye. I am free to move around as an invisible woman, with my own creative arsenal - and vision.