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For my project, I decided to explore self-portraiture as a means of showing personal discomfort and isolation. For my entire life, I have disliked being in front of the camera. I hate having photos taken of me, to the point that I often won’t let even my family take photos of me. I do not use social media such as Facebook or Instagram for the most part because I do not take photos of myself to post. This series explores self-portraiture as a means of pushing myself to rise above the discomfort of seeing myself in photographs. In addition, I wanted to represent myself and aspects of my life through this project. I am a very private, shy and introverted person which has caused me issues socially. I find it hard to make friends and being in a large overwhelming city like Toronto has only made that worse. I live in an apartment with other roommates, yet none of us interact with each other regularly. We are just each other’s roommates, not friends. This has contributed to these feelings of isolation as in previous years I lived with my best friend and now I have roommates I don’t see. So I really wanted my project to capture these feelings of isolation and loneliness in my day-to-day life.

Bio

Jessica Keating is a photographer based in Toronto, Canada, currently studying at Ryerson University. She primarily shoots digitally, with her work largely focusing around industry, urban landscape and the impact of humans on the environment. She hopes to draw attention to issues of consumption and urban sprawl and their impacts on the environment through her work.