So the start of a new year and most of us feel a little reflective and perhaps set ourselves new goals for the coming year. I for one have been pondering whether to start my own 365 photography project. Taking 1 photo for every day of the year as a way to document my life in 2012. I hoped such a project would force me to slow down and think about the world a little differently whilst also improving my photography. I’d planned to start on the 1st January but I wasn’t sure I had the commitment and it would become another half hearted fad.
Whilst I may not have the commitment plenty of others have. Over the last few years there have been lots of inspiring portrait projects not least of all Everyday by Noah Kalina. Noah is from Brooklyn and started to capture self portraits of himself back in 2000 at the age of 19. He’s still going. Another inspiring self portrait project is The Longest Way by Christoph Rehage which provides an insight into a 4500km journey by foot through the Gobi desert. I’ve even been tempted to dabble with my own slightly odd experiment in 2010 whilst out in India but the less said about that the better.
It must be something to do with the era in which we live and the popularity, affordability and immediacy of digital photography that these types of projects keep emerging but today I came across another outstanding project by Jeff Harris which has left me feeling shaken up and ready to pop…in a good way. Harris used to make new years resolutions promising to write diaries which always fizzled out by February. As a photographer however, he realised he could always spare five minutes to take a self portrait. So since the 1st January 1999 he’s been doing just that. That’s over 4,748 self-portraits.
When asked why Harris said:
“I see no reason to not make a self-portrait each day. I’m always around and always free. It’s kind of like going to the gym—it flexes your muscles and keeps you in shape.”
“I didn’t want 365 images of me sitting on the couch each day,” says Harris. “There could have been that tendency, especially during the cold dark winter months to stay inside all the time, but this project inspired me to get out there and seek out interesting things.”
An intimate and honest approach from the mundane to the adventurous. Over the projects thirteen years it’s clear Harris hasn’t got bored and he even confesses to finding it harder to stop the longer he continues. He’s now in his fourteenth year of an ever-evolving art project documenting a life well lived. For a glimpse into Harris’ world watch the video below that was produced for Time Magazine lightbox.
29 June 2002
01 Sep 2008
04 March 2009
12 Feb 2010
Visit jeffharris.org to see the project in its entirety.
