Image of the week : phone fog ?

A sign of the times :

A man so engrossed in his phone did not notice that a whale was swimming just feet away from him.

@esmith_images/Instagram 

From UT SanDiego

Dude! Way to not whale watch.

If this picture does not sum up how wrapped up we are in our electronics then nothing ever will.

A photo posted to Instagram Tuesday by professional photographer Eric Smith shows a man so engrossed in his phone that he fails to notice an enormous humpback whale swimming next to the boat just feet away.

Smith wrote on the post that he captured the symbolic moment a few weeks ago on a whale watching trip off Redondo Beach. He didn't miss the moment. He saw a whale and her calf breach about 50 feet away from him when they resurfaced next to the sailboat.

He wrote that while two women at the front of the boat were taking pictures, the cell phone guy was oblivious.

In an interview with ABC News, Smith said he took five photos of the whale next to the sailboat and that the man did not look up once.

"He could have been texting his mom in the hospital for all I know, but I thought it sucked that he missed such a wonderful moment happening just two feet in front of him," Smith told the network.

As John Lennon famously said, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." (Or busy playing Flappy Bird?)

If you're not like cell phone dude and love seeing animals up close in the wild, here are more great whale and other photos Smith shot that day, including one of a dolphin jumping completely out of the water. His website can be found here.