take one picture a day and keep it no matter how it turned out

August 7, 2019 9:01 AM

Starting 40 years ago, before it was common in the age of digital photos, blogs and social media, Jamie Livingston took one Polaroid photo a day, until the day he died in October 1997. The collection was a private archive until Hugh Crawford digitized the images and posted them online. "Initially it wasn't meant to be looked at by anyone. A group of us were putting on an exhibition of the photos and the site was a place where we could look at the pictures while we talked on the phone." Because it's a site for friends, and a posthumous collection, there aren't descriptions or even captions, just a timeline and the photos. Other people found the site, and discovered Jamie Livingston's life through his photos (Mentalfloss, 2008).

The quote above the break is from an article on The Guardian, which includes this overview of the photos, an a fun anecdote:

There are a lot of visual jokes, fuzzy shots and fluffed self-portraits, but the plan was to take one picture and keep it no matter how it turned out. Once they found themselves walking with circus elephants through the heart of New York, late at night. Crawford turned to his friend and suggested this could be the picture of the day. "He was like, 'No, I took a picture of my lunch, it's already been taken,'" laughs Crawford.

Here's a short IMDb page for Jamie, and a brief Wikipedia article on him.

posted by filthy light thief (5 comments total)

Previously, when Photo of the Day was on a different website.

A MeFite recalls his friend -- "Once a year he would host a gallery show of all the pictures. The key difference, of course, was that they weren't all of him."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:06 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

"Once a year he would host a gallery show of all the pictures. The key difference, of course, was that they weren't all of him."

Yes, and they were laid out on the floor in chronological order.
posted by Dean358 at 9:09 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Hi Dean! I'm glad to see you around.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:14 AM on August 7, 2019

Hi Dean! I'm glad to see you around.

Thanks filthy light thief. Still enjoy the Blue. And extra thanks for posting this thread about Jamie.
posted by Dean358 at 9:17 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love that the cover shot is someone in an outstanding DIY Residents get up.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:36 AM on August 7, 2019