Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Jamie Livingston: a Polaroid every day

I came across this post on mentalfloss today and thought the subject was absolutely amazing. Jamie Livingston, an independent filmmaker and photographer in New York, took a Polaroid every day from 1979 to the day before his death (which happened to be his birthday) in 1997. The images tell an intimate story of his life through snapshots of his friends and everyday surroundings. Thankfully, the entire collection of images has been posted to a website for us to see. It reads like a movie, describing how wonderful and how temporary life is.

Update:
The more I think about this, the more I'm completely floored by it. It seems that I'm not the only one that feels this way. After doing a bit more research I found this site that appears to have compiled a number of responses to the original mentalfloss post (only created a week ago). This is not the first time this work has been shown to the public, but its new exposure has caused an uproar in many parts of the world. It's amazing that a simple (yet extremely complex) personal sentiment of a complete stranger has touched many peoples lives nearly 30 years after it started. As I've been looking through the images, I find myself checking significant dates in my own life to see what was happening in Livingston's. What also blows me away is the clash of mediums. Livingston's Polaroids, intimate one-of-a-kind images, sat (nearly) unseen in boxes for more than 20 years. In the coarse of a week it the entire collection has been newly exposed to (potentially) millions of people through blogs. Please look at the images and read the responses.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Walter Gropius on Google

We thought it was pretty cool of Google to honor Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius today.