By Chris Higgins
MentalFloss.com
May 21, 2008
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Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.
In 1979 the photos start casually, with pictures of friends, picnics, dinners, and so on. Here’s an example from April 23, 1979 (I believe the photographer of the series is the man in the left foreground in this picture):
Throughout the 1980s we see more family/fun photos, but also some glimpses of the photographer’s filmmaking and music. Here’s someone recording audio in a film editing studio from February 5, 1983:
In the late 1980s we start seeing more evidence that the photographer is also a musician. He plays the accordion, and has friends who play various stringed instruments. What kind of music are they playing? Here’s a photo from July 2, 1989 of the photographer with his instrument:
In 1991, we see visual evidence of the photographs so far. The photographer has been collecting them in Polaroid boxes inside suitcases, as seen in this photo from March 30, 1991:
Throughout early 1997, we start to see the photographer himself more and more often. Sometimes his face is obscured behind objects. Other times he’s passed out on the couch. When he’s shown with people, he isn’t smiling. On May 2 1997, something bad has happened:
By May 4, 1997, it’s clear that he has cancer:
On October 5, 1997, it’s pretty clear what this picture means:
And just a few weeks later he’s back in the hospital. On October 24, 1997, we see a friend playing music in the hospital room:
The next day the photographer dies.
What started for me as an amusing collection of photos — who takes photos every day for eighteen years? — ended with a shock. Who was this man? How did his photos end up on the web? I went on a two-day hunt, examined the source code of the website, and tried various Google tricks.
Finally my investigation turned up the photographer as Jamie Livingston, and he did indeed take 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.
After Livingston’s death, his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid put together a public exhibit and website using the photos and called it JAMIE LIVINGSTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997, 6,697 Polaroids, dated in sequence. The physical exhibit opened in 2007 at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College (where Livingston started the series, as a student, way back when). The exhibit included rephotographs of every Polaroid and took up a 7 x 120 foot space.
You can read more about the project at this blog (apparently written by Crawford?). Or just look at the website. It’s a stunning account of a man’s life and death. All photos above are from the website.
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(All photos property of their original owner)
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