Jamie Livingston

Jamie Livingston’s Polaroid-A-Day Website Back Up

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Yesterday because of the intense volume of traffic to Jamie Livingston’s Photo-of-the-Day site, the site crashed.

Hugh worked on it all day and night and it seems to be up and running. I hope it stays that way. "The site is barely able to deal with the number of people right now. Please be patient. If you experience a problem, just try again later."

Jamie Livingston (1956-1997) took a Polaroid every day for 18 years, including the day he died in 1997.

He was an amazing artist who’s project seems to have captured the hearts of tens of thousands of people on the Internet.

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On May 21, Mental Floss ran a story by Chris Higgens about his discovery of Jamie’s website.

"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."

The site wasn’t even public yet. Hugh and Betsy Reid have been working on it for years. They had to scan 6000 plus photographs; Hugh has spent days and nights of his life coding it. It is, truly a labor of love.

Hugh and Betsy are thrilled that the Internet has discovered Jamie. Friends were writing and calling all day with joy that Jamie’s work is getting to those, who really seem to appreciate it.

Betsy wrote me early Thursday morning:

i knew it would happen in some random way. i love it. the tears started coming when i pulled up OTBKB and read the first few words….
Another friend wrote to her:

i can just see the shit eatin’ grin on jamie — the new hero of the blogosphere’s — face! precious and priceless.

So why did the site crash? Because it’s an interactive site, the volume of visitors—and the amount of time they spend at the site clicking from one picture to the next—was more than the site could bear. Hopefully Hugh has fixed the problem. We’ll see as the day progresses.

Above is a picture of Hugh from 1991. Below that is a pix of Betsy Reid and Jamie on July 16th 1988. Below left to right: Billy Swindler, composer, musician, and friend, who died of AIDs. Tim Allen, friend. And the guy with the open mouth—that’s Jamie taking a picture of a tooth.

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5 thoughts on “Jamie Livingston’s Polaroid-A-Day Website Back Up”

  2. My name is Juliana Rocha and I’m a brazilian journalist. I’d like to contact Jamie Livingston’s friends, the ones that have been collecting and organizing the blog where his work is published. I’d like to set a brief interview so I could write an article and tell that sometimes sad but amazing story of devotion to art. Please contact me jurocha at gmail.com. Or at +55 21 2101-4372.

  3. interesting life. a stranger with 18years of photos of his own life on the internet… specialy that his life was in completely different decades than mine. the site still with problems, let me know if you need help I have a server and you could upload many photos into there.

  4. interesting life. a stranger with 18years of photos of his own life on the internet… specialy that his life was in completely different decades than mine. the site still with problems, let me know if you need help I have a server and you could upload many photos into there.

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