Jacqui Kenny is a travel photographer who doesn’t travel and has never used a professional camera before.
It sounds absurd, but it’s true. And she’s kind of killing it.
Kenny has agoraphobia, an extreme anxiety disorder that makes it difficult for her to leave her home in the UK. But, by using Google Street View, she has “traveled” the world taking more than 27k screenshots along the way, in what she calls “Street View photography.”
Changing the photography game
Sometimes working 18 hour days, Kenny transports herself around the world through Google’s lens, showing people what it’s like to be up close and personal at a camel race in the United Arab Emirates, or a topiary tree in Winslow Arizona.
Time-consuming as it is, she believes Street View photography has a unique beauty to it that people don’t get from regular photos.
“I love the angle of the camera, this slight oddness, the 360-ness and even the blurred faces,” she says. “Everything that gives it a bit of an other worldly feel.”
People are catching on
More than 200 of Kenny’s screen-grabbed images appear on her Instagram account, the Agoraphobic Traveller, which has more than 56k followers.
Now, her Street View photography has actually forced her to travel for realzies: her first exhibit is now in New York, where visitors can look at her photos using a pair of VR goggles.
