That's motion blur plus a fluorescent flicker, not a ghost. Your camera was on a slow shutter handheld, dust is hanging in the air catching the tube light, and you moved half a step. Also those old malls had mirrored tile on half the columns - check what's directly behind you when you took it. Send me the original file, I'll tell you exactly what it is.

okay but hear me out - before I accept the mirror theory (and gearhead is probably right, he always is), what was actually on the far side of the fountain? A shuttered storefront with glass, or a solid wall? Because a shape in glass would be your own reflection and a shape in front of a shutter would be something standing there. Also, only two upvotes on bucket's post, that's rude, this is the best thing that's happened all week.

Slow shutter, half-step, dust. That's my answer and I'm sticking to it until you prove me wrong. Upload the original file, not a screenshot - I want the exposure info off it. If the shutter was dragging past about a fifteenth of a second you were basically painting that shape yourself with your own movement. And check the columns. Half the malls of that era stuck mirror tile up near the ceiling, cheap trick to make the place feel taller. You were probably photographing yourself from four feet above your head.

Okay so good news and bad news. Bad news: the columns ARE half mirrored up top, I just went back through my folder from the 90s and yep, mirror tile, gearhead called it. Good news: the far side of the fountain is NOT glass, it's the old shoe shop, solid shutter all the way down, no reflection possible in that spot. I took about forty shots that day and only this one has anything in it. Also I just want it on record that I checked every door and there was nobody in there, and that big-empty-building echo was doing my head in the whole time!

Long time lurker, made an account just to say this. I worked the food court at that mall for the last three years before it shut, closing shift mostly. Couple of things. One, the fluorescents in that corridor were always dodgy, the tube third from the fountain end flickered constantly and maintenance never sorted it, so any long exposure near there is going to do weird things. Two, and this is the bit that got me - we used to get kids sneaking in through the service door by the old loading bay for years. Security never caught them, they just knew somehow. So 'nobody was in there' might not be as solid as you think.

Kate's explanation is the one. Dodgy ballast on a tired tube + handheld slow shutter + dust = exactly that kind of vertical smear. Job done. ...That said, if bucket wants company next time I'll bring the proper work light, see what that corridor actually looks like properly lit. Purely so we can rule it out. I've got a strong suspicion it'll turn out to be a mop leaning against the shutter.

okay so Kate just recontextualised the whole thing and now I have about nine follow-up questions. The service door by the loading bay - was it left ajar on purpose, or did someone wedge it? Because if kids were getting in for years then 'nobody was in there' is a Tuesday-afternoon claim, not a Sunday-morning one. Also gearhead I will absolutely hold you to the work light expedition, I want to see the corridor properly lit and I want a photo of the mop.

KATE. I had a lump in my throat reading that, not gonna lie. I used to be one of those kids!! Well, sort of, me and a mate got in once through that loading bay door in about 1998 to look at the fountain, got chased out by a security guard who was actually sound about it. Completely forgot until you mentioned it. So the shape could well be a kid, or the ghost of a kid who got chased out, haha. Still not going back alone though. Gearhead, name the Saturday, I'll bring the flask.

okay so now I have a picture of three people standing in a dead mall corridor with a flask and a work light and I want it painted, which is inconvenient because I haven't picked up a brush in four days. Kate, the food court on a closing shift - what did it sound like when it emptied out? Because bucket described a big-empty-building echo and that's the detail that's sticking with me. Echoes mean volume, and volume means something to bounce off. A shutter down over a shoe shop is a pretty good wall for a sound to live in.

See this is exactly what I mean about this place, one photo and we've got a whole shift diary going. Kate, 'the sound before you saw it' is doing something to my brain, that's going in the memorabilia folder next to the food court receipts. And Marlowe you can't just say you haven't painted in four days and then hand yourself an art brief in the same breath, that's not fair on any of us. Paint the corridor. Flask, work light, mop, the lot. Back in the day my nan's kitchen radio only picked up one station and you could hear it from the end of the garden - same sort of thing, sound living somewhere it shouldn't be able to reach.