Jamie Livingston - A Photo Of The Day

LowLight · Jamie Livingston - A Photo Of The Day

Jamie Livingston (October 25, 1956 - October 25, 1997) was a New York-based photographer, film-maker and circus performer. Between March 31, 1979 and October 25, 1997, the day of his death, he took a single picture nearly every day with a Polaroid camera.

Livingston's 'Polaroid a Day' photographic diary started at Bard College and though some photos have gone missing from the collection, 6,697 Polaroids remain. The collection, dated in sequence, has been organized by his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid into an exhibit at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College called "JAMIE LIVINGSTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997", which opened in 2007.

A BLOG POST

THE PICTURES

GOOGLE EARTH TYPE VIEW - You'll know what I mean when you see it.

cybers

That was a great wee browse the google earth type one was really an impressive web-design for a site.
Thanks

LowLight

It's an interesting look into someone's life.

The Google Earth style is really good.

rotten milk

amazing!

reminds me of the film 'blue in the face', where one of the themes is how tobacco-store owner, augie (played by harvey keitel), takes a photo at the same time every day, from the same spot outside his store. he has albums full of the resulting pics

LowLight

Well I'm glad three of us liked it.

I see something new every time I look at the pics.

EDIT: Also just started downloading 'Blue In The Face'.

rotten milk

i think the thing for me is that they're not just 'random' pics anymore, which they would otherwise be

one pic is a specific date in time, i.e. this is a pic of a (fairly) particular moment in time

if it was just general 'pics what i have took' it could be a bit 'so fcking what!', but to know that these are part of a huge time-frame, makes you think it's a record of.........something bigger than the parts?

does that make sense outside of my own head?

P.S. iirc the film was directed by wayne wang and it's a 'duet' - the first one is 'smoke', the second is 'blue in the face' - differing storylines, focuses on characters etc., but the same actors/characters in both.
ironically, my fave bit is the story of how augie gets the camera, in the projects with granny, accompanied by tom waits' 'innocent when you dream'

SPOILER ALERT!!!!
i.e.he steals it, but he makes amends by being good to the old dear by basically being attentive and considerate to her, at christmas

LowLight

Aye to me it's like a snapshot of a very specific place and time and not just hundreds of random shots lying about and made into a collection.

He woke up one day and decided to take 1 picture everyday and he accomplished that. I have total respect for that kind of commitment.