The Shape of Myself

The Unseen Self is an ongoing exploration of identity through concealment, reflection, and transformation.
In every photograph I take, I appear — but my face never does. My portraits are not about recognition; they are about what remains when recognition is removed.

I am fascinated by the idea that identity can exist without direct visibility — that a person can be present in shadow, reflection, or disguise. Each image becomes an experiment in how much of “me” can be felt when the expected markers of self are gone. By obscuring my face, I make space for something quieter and perhaps more truthful to emerge.

The photographs are both playful and introspective.
Sometimes, I am a shadow stretching across the floor, looking toward a Christmas tree. In another, I’m reflected in the curved surface of a cookie tin, my image warped and incomplete. I might peer through the open mouth of a Halloween decoration, or appear refracted through the fragile skin of a bubble. These are moments of accidental intimacy — brief and strange intersections between myself and the world around me.

Each object, reflection, or surface becomes a collaborator in the act of self-portraiture. The subject — whether a decoration, a reflection, or an everyday object — becomes just as important as I am. The environment carries my likeness, even as it conceals it. My identity disperses into the scene: a presence without a face, a person defined by what surrounds them.

I’m not hiding — I’m redefining what it means to be seen.
The clearer the photograph becomes, the less I appear in it. Yet, in that absence, something real emerges: emotion, curiosity, play, wonder, distance.
Through distortion and disguise, I find clarity — not of image, but of intention.

Ultimately, The Unseen Self is about the relationship between identity and perception. It asks: how much of the self is visible, and how much can only be felt? Each photograph is both a mask and a mirror — a reflection of who I am, seen through everything that is not my face.