Scrolling through our Instagram feeds, there was always one account that would make us take pause. The arresting photographs from Noah Scialom combined impeccable timing with an innate ability to capture human, and humorous, moments.



Scialom, whose work appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Time, The Sun, and City Paper, took his own life on Tuesday at just 28 years old.



“He had this uncanny ability to be near something crazy,” said photographer and Baltimore contributor Matt Roth, who was a bit of a mentor to Scialom and got him freelance work at Patuxent Publishing. “A 16-wheeler exploded on I-83? Noah was a few cars behind it. Noah showed up early for a varsity soccer game, and he was there when a JV soccer player was kicked in the chest and almost died . . . Somehow there’s always an adventure happening around him.”



“Noah will go down in history as a street photographer. He was made for it. He wasn’t scared of conflict. He relied on his wit and warm charm to disarm anyone suspicious of his intentions. He was a great talker, but his real genius was how genuinely interested he was in whoever he talked to,” said Roth.