Lots of traffic expected. Here’s the story on Very Short List. The Jamie Livingston site seems to be holding up well thanks to Hugh and friends in Minneapolis.
When that itch surfaces to revisit all the big moments in our lives (the proms, weddings, births, European vacations), we naturally reach for the photo album. But where are all those other days — that Tuesday in March, say, when, as far as we can recall, nothing happened? The New York–based cinematographer Jamie Livingston found something worth photographing that day, and the next, as he meticulously (and miraculously) chronicled twenty years of his life in Polaroids before succumbing to cancer in 1997, on his 41st birthday.
Photo of the Day is the beautifully sad website erected by Livingston’s friends to catalogue his prodigious output, with 6,697 captured moments ranging from the mundane to the sublime. There he is napping in one, and newly engaged in another. His lovely gesture of toting around a camera to immortalize the everyday, every day, feels oddly prescient. After all, that cell-phone camera you carry everywhere? Maybe use it or lose it, forever.
Thank you, Jamie. I didn’t know you but if I did I would have thought you were a pretty cool guy. So often the everyday simple things in life are beautiful and you’ve shown us that.
stunning. i spent two hours looking at photos. first to see if the same national events meant anything to him (challenger exploding yes, lennon assassinated, no), then to see the progression of his disease.
I was really stuck on the last photo. Is jamie alive in that photo? who took that one? (10/25/97)
If someone could get these on flickr, then people can appreciate them for years to come and learn from the great things that have been done here
I foresee much viewing time being spent by curiosity seekers.
This is one of the more intriguing ideas I’ve ever heard of.
So simple, so eloquent, yet addictive. I’m glad server space has been added. You’ll need it!
I, too, heard about Jamie’s photo collection via VeryShortList. A fantastic collection of images that tells a poignant tale of one’s life. Thanks for all your work to help share Jamie’s gift with so many others! We now know him, those who loved him, and perhaps ourselves that much better.
Very inspirational. Great to see that a large number of people can see this project of passion. Who are the gracious people in Minneapolis?
I just saw your site articled on VeryShortList (as you predicted) and curiosity got the best of me.
The first photo I see is of someone dressed as a member of the band The Residents, a strange group that I have actually grown fond of this year.
I’m sold! Bookmarked!
fantastic assortment of imagery. i clicked through each year on the month of my birthday and enjoyed the visual trip of 18 years of our contiguous lives.