According to a recent survey, in 2021, Canadians spent in average 4.22 hours per day on their smartphones. Almost half of them even confessed that they couldn’t live without them. As the father of three girls now aged between 12 and 19, I have been able to witness first hand the irresistible attraction that handheld devices have on teenagers in particular. No matter where our steps have taken us as a family, be it the mist-covered mountains of Sapa in Vietnam, the crowded alleys of Itaewon in Seoul, or the breathtaking landscapes of New Zealand, smartphones have always been part of the journey and often stole the show.

Started in 2016, Oblivious is an ongoing visual diary that illustrates the distraction vortex that smartphones have become in our societies. The portraits making up the series are all unposed and, for the most part, have been taken unbeknownst to my daughters.