This photographer delivers powerful series on our mobile-obsessed culture

In an era where our phones have become extensions of our bodies – U.S visual artist and photographer Eric Pickersgill is capturing the detachment of digital dependence.

His ongoing large-format portrait series ‘REMOVED’ eliminates phones from his subject’s hands, leaving behind an eerie posture that speaks volumes.

all images reproduced here with permission and copyright Eric Pickersgill Studio

For Eric it started in a café in NYC, with a moment that will be depressingly familiar to many. A family seated close by: two teenage daughters locked into their screens.

Pickersgill explains his motivation for the series ‘This phantom limb is used as a way of signaling busyness and unapproachability to strangers while existing as an addictive force that promotes the splitting of attention between those who are physically with you and those who are not.”

His poignant portraits are stripped down but instantly legible.

On his creative process; “Sitters are asked to hold their stare and posture as I remove their device and then I make the exposure. The photographs represent reenactments of scenes that I experience daily. We have learned to read the expression of the body while someone is consuming a device and when those signifiers are activated it is as if the device can be seen taking physical form without the object being present.”

Each subject holds a position of absorbed engagement eyes locked downward, hands cupped in ritual grip but the device is absent.

There’s a quiet brilliance to the execution.

By omitting the object, the photos reveal just how deeply ingrained our phone obsessed gestures have become.

Brands have been tapping into the trend for a return to a more analogue lifestyle – Heineken recently launch mobile plan that rewards logging off.

Polaroid’s latest outdoor campaign in NYC takes aim at AI and phone fatigue.

Eric’s book will be published soon –  join his newsletter to be the first to know about publication.

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