Are photos of people on their cellphones inherently boring?

Brian Lloyd Duckett is pretty blunt about it in his book A Street Photography Manifesto. He basically says they’re just not photo worthy. And honestly, I get it. A person staring at a screen, head down, sealed off from the world. We’ve all seen it a thousand times. Yawn.

But it got me wondering: so when is a phone photo not boring?

I don’t think the phone is the problem. Just like silhouettes, it comes down to what else is happening in the frame. If it’s just person plus phone, there’s not much there.

In New York— and pretty much everywhere else I’ve been—people are completely absorbed in their phones. I started looking for moments when that obsession created some kind of tension, or maybe some kind of disconnect. So, for the past two or three years, I’ve been collecting images of parents glued to their screens while their kids are doing everything possible to get their attention. It has quietly become a fun little project of mine.

Take this subway shot.

The father is locked into his phone while the kid is practically folded in half, looking like he’s about to lose consciousness. The photo isn’t really about the phone. It’s about the disconnect. The phone just delivers the punchline. I briefly considered titling the photo “Diabetic Coma” just to stir the pot, but decided to leave it untitled.

Same idea with the woman selling snacks while scrolling next to a crying child.

Again, the phone is not the subject. It’s the contrast between attention and neglect, presence and absence. In both of these photos, the parent’s hand is on the child, but it reads less like a comforting gesture and more like, “I know you’re there. I’ll get to you. I just need to finish this Instagram reel.”

Then there’s the man pushing his kid on the swing. Or, more accurately,

attempting to push his kid on the swing while trying to decide whether he really needs that artisanal sourdough starter someone posted about on Instagram.

His hand is blindly pawing at empty air, missing the swing by a good two feet, while the child looks quietly betrayed. The best part is that the photo freezes the exact moment when multitasking completely collapses.

Here the child is practically shouting for attention with their whole body, yet it still isn't enough to pull the father's eyes away from his phone. Physically, they couldn't be much closer. Emotionally, they seem miles apart. That's what gives the photograph its tension. The phone isn't really the subject; it's simply the thing that makes the disconnect impossible to ignore.

I tried getting a bit moody and artistic with the black and white image below, but the theme remains: in the quiet competition between the kid and the phone for attention, the phone wins.

Maybe that’s the real challenge with photographing people on their phones. The image only becomes interesting when the phone reveals something larger: distraction, loneliness, disconnection, obsession, even comedy. The device itself is just a prop. What matters is the human behavior orbiting around it. Otherwise, it’s just another glowing rectangle in another stranger’s hand.