Wow

"When Jamie Livingston, photographer, filmmaker, circus performer, accordian player, Mets fan, and above all, loyal friend, died on October 25th (his birthday) in 1997 at the age of 41, he left behind hundreds of bereft friends and a collection of 6,000 photographs neatly organized in small suitcases and wooden fruit crates.

Jamie took a polaroid once a day, every day, including his last, for 18 years..."

From Gothamist: Last week the website Mental Floss discovered a treasure chest of old Polaroids online, all chronologically ordered and taken throughout the years 1979 to 1997. Soon after the discovery, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn provided the full story behind what seemed like a very mysterious website...

From Mental Floss:

"Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.

In 1979 the photos start casually, with pictures of friends, picnics, dinners, and so on.

In the late 1980s we start seeing more evidence that the photographer is also a musician. He plays the accordion, and has friends who play various stringed instruments. What kind of music are they playing?

The 1990s seem to be a good time for the photographer. We see him spending more time with friends, and less time photographing street subjects. In 1991, we see visual evidence of the photographs so far. The photographer has been collecting them in Polaroid boxes inside suitcases.

Throughout early 1997, we start to see the photographer himself more and more often. Sometimes his face is obscured behind objects. Other times he’s passed out on the couch. When he’s shown with people, he isn’t smiling...

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."

Mental Floss Discovers Jamie Livingston's Photo-of-the-Day Website {Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn}

A Life on Polaroid {Gothamist}