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Unscripted Lives

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A Practice in Patience

Matthew Irving May 22, 2017

Simferopol, Ukraine - If you’ve ever sat in a park or a cafe and just observed what’s going on, you’ll notice that almost every person is on their cellphone. If they’re not directly interacting with someone in the vicinity, they’re glued to their screens. Why is this? What sort of habit has this become? It seems that more than ever before, we’ve become disconnected with our surroundings, never looking up to enjoy ourselves. I’m guilty of this just like the next person, but every once in a while, I’ll step out and just watch. This is one of my favorite things to do when I travel. Observing my surroundings and taking everything in. Often times, I don’t ever see anything I want, and it just becomes a practice in patience, but every once in a while, the stars align and a scene slowly moves together.

In this shot, I watched as subject after subject walked by. I photographed a few other people, but it wasn’t until this kid came by on his phone that I felt like I got something that I really liked. I’m not 100% sure what it is I like about it. It could have been his positioning, or because he was on his phone, but after I photographed him, I felt like I could move on.

Tags cellphone, bad, black and white, cafe, crimea, disconnected, distraction, guilty, habit, ineraction, observation, observe, patience, positioning, practice, simferopol, street photography, surroundings, travel, travel photography, ukraine, unscripted lives

Behind the Confines of our Walls

Matthew Irving January 30, 2017

Sarajevo, Bosnia- Behind the confines of our walls, we weep for the ignorant. Barriers that have been built to shield us from others make us more alone than ever before. We walk among the trees and flowers, across the courtyard, reflecting on the outside influences that have shaped our world, and yet we resist. We're afraid, unmoved. Our hands remain at our sides, unwilling to grasp what the future holds in front of us. Instead, we lay waste to to our surroundings and indulge the whispers and murmurings in the alleys, perfectly content to accept any inconvenience that stands in our way to greatness.

Tags 120, alone, black and white, barriers, bosnia, content, courtyard, flowers, greatness, inconvenience, indulge, influences, kodak, relfecting, resist, rolleiflex, sarajevo, shield, surroundings, tmax400, trees, unscripted lives, unwilling, whispers, world