Document Your Life - A Photo A Day

I StumbleUpon'd an interesting story and fabulous idea this morning while researching things to blog about. Jamie Livingston took a photo every day for eighteen years, until the day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. He called the project “Photo of the Day” and presumably planned to collect them at some point — had he lived. He died on October 25, 1997 — his 41st birthday.

Photos include friends, food, traveling, playing music, TV screen shots of significant moments in history, hospitalization, wedding, visual jokes, night life, the circus and more. On October 25 the series ends. Jamie Livingston was a film maker and editor who worked on public information films, adverts and promo videos for MTV. Taking a single photo every day began by accident when he was 22 and studying film with Hugh Crawford at Bart College, in upstate New York.

“He’d been doing it for about a month before he realised he’d been taking a photo about one picture a day, and then he made the commitment to keep doing that,” says Crawford, who was responsible for putting his friend’s pictures on line after his death. “That’s what he was like. There are some people who have flashes of brilliance and do things in a huge rush or creative burst but he was more of a steady, keep-at-it kind of guy and he did amazing stuff. Part of the appeal of the site is that Jamie was not this amazing-looking guy. He led an incredible life, but there’s an every man quality to the photographs.”

Looking at the website and photos is AMAZING! Without knowing Jamie at all I feel like I know so much about him. I laugh, smile, cringe and shed tears while seeing this beautiful life one photo at a time. What a journey this man had and he captured moments that were significant and real. I appreciate his creativity and consistent effort to tell his story.

This would be an incredible legacy for any person to make for themselves or their family. With just a camera phone you can take a photo each day and put it on a blog, save it to a file or print and store. Take a photo and resist the urge to reshoot, alter or analyze it. The photos are from your view of the world and that is an important thing for you to see and those who care for you. It would also be a fantastic way for you to see what your kids think about or your aging parents. This is too easy not to do :o) Take the photo a day challenge and keep it going!

* Thanks to mental_floss and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn for sharing this story and allowing me to use some of your copy to reiterate this on our site.