Joanna Canara is a photographer based in Gujarat, India, whose self-portraits and observational images of everyday life are built around a soft, hazy aesthetic that embraces imperfection.,By 2020, she had been photographing for seven years, having started “just for fun”.
She shoots mostly on a phone and does not plan her images in advance, working intuitively and often combining two unrelated photographs into a single double exposure. In I don't belong here, she merged a self-portrait taken one afternoon during lockdown with an earlier photograph of birds she had taken from her bedroom window.When she is unable to take a picture, she sketches the scene in a diary she calls “beautiful moments I cannot afford to forget”.
Canara uses her self-portraits to process her feelings and mental health, and has said she feels most comfortable being the subject of her own photographs because she can direct herself without pressure.She has said she does not consider whether an image will be liked on social media before posting it, only whether it speaks to her.Alongside her photography, Canara has engaged with the NFT community on Tezos, a proof-of-stake blockchain she has said she favours for its lower energy use and its community of artists.
