How addicted are you to your device?
Removed is an amazing photo project by American photographer Eric Pickergill that accentuates how smartphones have penetrated into our daily lives with some striking portraits of people in every day moments with their mobile devices removed from the photos.
The origins of the photo project stems from a family he encountered while at a New York café.
His notes from that day read:
“Family sitting next to me at Illium café in Troy, NY is so disconnected from one another. Not much talking.
Father and two daughters have their own phones out.
Mom doesn’t have one or chooses to leave it put away.
She stares out the window, sad and alone in the company of her closest family.
Dad looks up every so often to announce some obscure piece of info he found online.”
His images depict jarring scenes that show how pervasive this new technology has become in our daily lives and the isolation even with a pair or group of family and friends as the subjects.
“Despite the obvious benefits that these advances in technology have contributed to society, the social and physical implications are slowly revealing themselves.”
“I’m not attempting to tell others what to do with their time, I’m just hopefully offering up a moment of realization.”
“I just personally need the reminder to put it down because it is an addiction.”
“In similar ways that photography transformed the lived experience into the photographable, performable, and reproducible experience…”
“…personal devices are shifting behaviors while simultaneously blending into the landscape by taking form as being one with the body.”
Photo Credits: removed.social