There was a time when presence felt effortless—when waiting at a roadside, sitting in a quiet room, or walking through a city meant noticing things. Now, those same moments are filled with flickers of blue light and the soundless scroll of thumbs across glass. The texture of daily life is still there, but something vital feels thinner—quieter, distant, paused.

Before smartphones, we engaged with our surroundings. We made eye contact, filled idle time with curiosity or conversation. Now, those spaces are occupied by screens. Moments once rich with spontaneity are replaced by downward glances and endless scrolling.

As a photographer, I used to see phone-absorbed figures as intrusions—interruptions in the frame. But over time, I began to see something more: a mirror of my own unease, my own surrender to the digital current. This project became a meditation—as much for me as for the people within it. Who among us isn’t complicit? Social media didn’t just emerge—it was engineered to exploit us. The dopamine loops, the red badges, the infinite feeds—all designed to monetize attention.

These images were taken in places shaped by Buddhist values—Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bhutan—where the ideal of mindfulness still hums beneath the surface. Here, presence is sacred. Stillness is not laziness, but a form of attention. Mindfulness, or sati, calls us to be with our breath, our bodies, our thoughts, and our surroundings. These teachings are not abstract; they are lived, chanted, walked.

And yet, even here, the digital world intrudes. Scenes unfold where monks scroll through feeds, where sacred spaces are framed through front cameras, where the wisdom of the present is quietly replaced by the noise of elsewhere.

Intertwined throughout the series are fragments of old phone advertisements—sun-bleached, peeling, torn. They once promised happiness, freedom, connection: glossy images of bright faces holding sleek devices. Now, time has worn them down. In some, a smiling man raises his phone, but the paper is ripped straight through his face, as if the self he once projected has been split in two. These weathered posters echo the very erosion this work seeks to reveal—not just of printed surfaces, but of attention, identity, and presence.

There is something lonely in these faces lit by screens while incense burns, while bells chime, while birds gather on temple roofs. There is something painfully familiar. This isn’t just about them—it’s about all of us. A face in a phone is no longer strange. It’s a mirror.