Picture a day for three years

By Shamus Posted Friday Aug 11, 2006

Filed under: Movies 5 comments

A woman took a picture of herself, every day, for three years. It forms a strange sort of animation, watching her weeks and months fly by at 24 frames a second. (Or whatever.)

The fact that a woman did this makes it more interesting. Her day-to-day variations are significant enough to keep her ever-changing. If a man did this it would be more or less the exact same picture, over and over, and the only thing likely to change is his shirt. (Although doing this while growing a long beard could prove interesting.) But this woman changed her hairstyle, makeup, and other things every once in a while, and of course women wear much more varied clothing as compared to men.

She also did an admirable job of getting the picture taken from about the same angle / distance each time. She did this for three years, starting in November 2001. I wonder if she’s still at it?

UPDATE: Yup – She is still doing it.

 


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5 thoughts on “Picture a day for three years

  1. Bonnie says:

    OK, that was wild. I think I read once, or maybe just imagined I read, about a guy who did this with his daughter. He took a picture of her everyday for several years starting when she was a baby. I vaguely entertained the idea of trying this on one of my kids, but realized I am too inconsistant and my kids are too uncooperative for it to ever work.

  2. Shamus says:

    Yes, it would be very interesting to see this done with kids. I think MOST kids are too uncooperative for such a thing. You’d have to do it while they were sleeping, but then getting the distance and angle right would be a real challenge. I can’t imagine how it could be done.

  3. Heather says:

    The closest we came ws taking a pic with the same doll in the same spot every month for a year. Even that was tricky.

    That site is too cool. What art sites should be like. New and different and all that.

    I have been sitting at work alone too long. Now I am starting to chat with your blog. :)

  4. Megan says:

    I think Noah actually did it first… (January 11, 2000 – July 31, 2006)

    Personally, I like Noah’s take better. He’s barely ever in the exact same spot once, so you can see the changes in his life/location as well as the man himself. Shows more life than change of clothing or a hairstyle change.

    Whenever I see the lady in the video you posted, I always get a mental image of her head in a brace so it’s in exactly the same spot in every single picture.

  5. Janus says:

    I’ve gotta completely disagree with your analysis as I change hairstyles and grow/shave my beard all the time. People look at me Facebook pictures and say that they suddenly understand how people can play so many roles in films with simple changes in makeup and costume.

    In middle school I had hair to my shoulders that I usually kept in a pony tail. In high school I had a mohawk, then long hair, then short spiky silver hair. At this point I also got my lip pierced. I shaved my head when I went off to college, then didn’t cut my hair for a year or so. A few years into college I put my hair into dreads and grew a beard for a few months, but didn’t have the patience to wait until the completely locked up so I shaved my head again. I grew my hair out not quite to my shoulders, then cut it short and started to wear it slicked back. It’s gotten to the point that it doesn’t slick back anymore so now I’m parting it down the side. I also took my lip ring out a few months ago and now I have a small scar where it used to be. I grow and cut my beard on a whim.

    So maybe you don’t express much of your individuality in your face, but that doesn’t mean all men don’t. :-D

    /necro

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