This photographer removes smartphones from the hands of those he portrays to show how addicted we are to them

Sometimes the best ideas arise by chance. This is what happened to the American photographer Eric Pickersgill during an ordinary morning in a quiet café in New York. In front of him an increasingly familiar scene: a family sitting at the table, completely absorbed by the screens of their smartphones. An image as ordinary as it is disturbing.

Struck by that moment of emotional disconnection, Eric gave life to a photographic series as simple as it is powerful, entitled “REMOVED”. The images portray people in everyday situations, sitting on the sofa, in bed, in the swimming pool, intent on looking at their phones. But there is one detail that changes everything: the smartphones were removed from the subjects’ hands shortly before the shot. The result is alienating. The postures remain unchanged, the gazes fixed into space, the hands supporting an absence.