Documenting a life
I started my first diary on the 7th of July, 1979.
30 years ago!
On that day my Dad drove through a red light and we crossed the longest bridge in South Australia. From that auspicious start, I kept a diary on and off for the following 16 years. Of course, I was most prolific during my teenage years whinging and wining, fantasising about Simon Le Bon. You know how it goes.
The 9s must be important to me for starting large projects because in 1999 I started my blog and in 2009 I decided to write a novel – or was that 2008? Oh well, regardless. I like the 9s.
Somebody else who started a daily documentation of his life in 1979 was Jamie Livingston – he was a photographer, film maker and circus performer who took a polaroid of his life nearly every day until his death in 1997 (although friends stepped in and helped in those last few frames).
“‘Photo of the Day‘ is a work of light, color, laughter, pain, travel, beauty, wonton soup, afternoons, coffee, hanging out, love, life in its entirety,” – Livinston’s friend Risa Mickenberg.
Looking through these photos is thoroughly moving.
Some others doing simialar things:
- Noah K Everyday – do check this out. The gasp-enducing impact of the site will only take a moment.
- Buster Benson – at 8.36pm every day he takes a snap of whatever is happening right in front of him. He is urging others to join in. His inspiration and objectives of the project are here – and it’s all great reading. (ps. Buster is amazing and always has been).
“The spirit of this project is the long-story of life. The fact that life moves simultaneously on the day-to-day, highly detailed, highly dramatic, arch at the same time that it moves like the slow swell of the ocean. This project’s spirit is in the slow swell, about how, a slight snapshot of each day, when later taken in the context of decades, will tell a story that the participants aren’t currently aware of.” – Buster Benson
- And of course Kirsty’s My Creative Space project is not unlike this. A freezeframe in a creative life; what’s happening in the studio each week, on a Thursday.
So I’m going to start my own:
A while back I started taking photos of our dinners every night. I am interested in food and the way I find myself thinking about food – what it means to me, what it means to my family and to my ideas of parenthood – the good and the bad (and sometimes the ugly), the nourishing and the controlling. I think I am going to take it back up again and see how long I can keep it going.
Phil started a network for posting daily images in this spirit. Join us!
