This was taken back in 2010 during my first (and ever) visit to Marrakech, Morroco. It was shot "at the hip" with my Nikon D3200, totally unplanned and if I remember...the shot felt utterly natural.
From a technical point of view i felt supremely at one with the Camera. It was as if my spirit, my hands, my vision, the camera all became One like some Star Wars "use the Force" shit. It was amazing.
I was astonished to find the exposure to what I imagined in my mind's eye a few moments before I hit the shutter.
What moved me to capture this photo was the loneliness i felt in this young man. He was in a side alley, seated on the ground mesmerised by his smart phone, endlessly scrolling, blank expression on his face. The irony is I had a sense of what he was doing...maybe looking at some Instagram feed of other people's lives...wishing he was somewhere else, dreaming...endlessly dreaming. And feeling lack, feeling lonely.
Loneliness is a lacking of/in oneself, often times artificially induced. The origin of this poison comes from this materialistic, vane, insecure, capitalistic, Hollywood driven society. Look what it creates! Look!
Seeing this kid there really reminded me that loneliness is the perversion of another supreme quality: aloneness. Both are two sides of the same coin.
Aloneness is the full recognition and acceptance of oneself. The birth of the individual soul, free thinking and priceless. Surely this isn't what the System want's us to be.
I come back to this photo at times and remember the kid and his induced lonesomeness. He could have chosen to do something else...but he chose the poison instead...