The consistency and quality of this project is impressive. This shows how much can be achieved if one just puts a little effort into a project every day.
At first I thought it was a project like this taking a photo of the same scene every day and making the changes of it over the years visible. But the variety of scenes is impressive and I can almost feel the pressure he must have felt every day to deliver his photo of the day.
Incredible quality! I also expected a time lapse, but the variety and consistency while maintaining beautiful composition & colour is truly impressive.
This is a great set and a fun reminder that Cambridge life doesn't revolve around the undergraduates (however much I might have thought it did at the time).
Interesting that he chose to photograph in (1) vertical on (2) a wide lens.
(1) Sceneries in general tend to feel horizontal. But I suppose you can still find vertical perspectives with street photography given that buildings are rather vertical as well.
(2) Wide angle means more coverage, showing more people in the shot, which tends to make composition difficult. Typically a good photo focuses on a subject. However, Martin Bond manages to compose and focus on a subject.
Also, wide angles introduce distortion of subjects along the edge of the photo. That shows in his photos, but are not too distracting.
On his site [0] the collection is subtitled 'a portrait every day'; I think it's very deliberate, well obviously it would be, but I mean I think it's intended to be 'a portrait' where the subject is Cambridge rather than a person, in a way that just taking a photo vertically (though still a deliberate choice) isn't.
Says on his website he shot everything with a Leica Q2, if he shot with the Original Q before the Q2 came out in '19, then he shot the whole project 28mm f1.7 as that's the lens glued to the Q series.
> 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 SX-70 camera.[1][2]
> NYC Photographer Jamie Livingston shot a Polaroid photo everyday for 6,000 days, or, roughly, 18 years. The first shot was of his girlfriend at the time on March 13, 1979.
> His last photo was on his deathbed, dying of cancer on October 25, 1997.
One fellow (Sam Javanrouh) in Toronto did it for ten years:
> I started [daily dose of imagery] on July 4th, 2003. I posted a photo each day since then. When I launched ddoi, there was no Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, iPhone, iPad, Android, 500px or Instagram.
> [daily dose of imagery] will remain as is and the whole archive of it will be available as long as I can afford to keep it. The photos will still be available for purchase I’ve also uploaded the whole 10 years archive into a new flickr account which is a great way to browse with large thumbnails. Bookmark it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddoi-archive/
I have seen several others, such as the girl whose father took her photos growing up from age 0 to 20. Another has a video every day on her birthdays, or was it her first day of school?
I wanted to do something but realized I could not do that for various reasons (travel, work, etc). However, I take enough photos regularly, and I think by the time my kids grow up, there will be good enough or even way better technology to parse through our photo collection and spit out the variations we like -- through the years, school days, birthdays, etc. -- a customized version of Moments.
Reminds me of Jonathan Mann[0], who makes a song every day.
I remember him from the song about the iPhone 4 antenna[1], the one Steve played at a keynote. Recently I've stumbled upon his YouTube channel and was shocked that he still, to this day continues with one song a day. It's very impressive to me.
What I find even more interesting, is that he's not some social media star, he usually gets 100-200 views on those videos. He does it for himself.
BTW, he also made the outro for Accidental Tech Podcasts, which has some listeners on this forum :)
From the about page on his site [1], this seems like it was intended to be a 365-day project that kept going! Pretty cool!
The intro page [2] as some more info:
>There is nothing didactic in the photographs; they have a relaxed tone, are often sympathetic, often celebratory, often funny, never malicious. They are as careful as they are spontaneous, as observant as they are generous – there is no general theme, no general point being made except that their very specificity and variety points to the universal business of being alive. All together, they show us that however beautiful Cambridge is, however ancient its gatehouses, however medieval its lanes, or still and green its courts, it is also a place where students and strangers, tourists and locals, vault and dance and play.
Readit News
Symbolic of the changing nature of Cambridge. This was the closing day for a furniture store next door to a house where my wife once lived:
https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04...
The large open air unheated lido:
https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12...
Punters in the snow:
https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...
His photos of deserted Cambridge streets at the start of the pandemic lockdown - somewhere that’s always busy - were particularly poignant.
Deleted Comment
At first I thought it was a project like this taking a photo of the same scene every day and making the changes of it over the years visible. But the variety of scenes is impressive and I can almost feel the pressure he must have felt every day to deliver his photo of the day.
https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/
Hug of death may take it away, however.
(1) Sceneries in general tend to feel horizontal. But I suppose you can still find vertical perspectives with street photography given that buildings are rather vertical as well.
(2) Wide angle means more coverage, showing more people in the shot, which tends to make composition difficult. Typically a good photo focuses on a subject. However, Martin Bond manages to compose and focus on a subject.
Also, wide angles introduce distortion of subjects along the edge of the photo. That shows in his photos, but are not too distracting.
[0]: https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/
> 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 SX-70 camera.[1][2]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Livingston
> NYC Photographer Jamie Livingston shot a Polaroid photo everyday for 6,000 days, or, roughly, 18 years. The first shot was of his girlfriend at the time on March 13, 1979.
> His last photo was on his deathbed, dying of cancer on October 25, 1997.
* https://www.chasejarvis.com/blog/a-polaroid-a-day-for-6000-d...
* https://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com
A lot of people take it up as a project:
* https://photzy.com/how-to-create-a-one-photo-a-day-project/
One fellow (Sam Javanrouh) in Toronto did it for ten years:
> I started [daily dose of imagery] on July 4th, 2003. I posted a photo each day since then. When I launched ddoi, there was no Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, iPhone, iPad, Android, 500px or Instagram.
> [daily dose of imagery] will remain as is and the whole archive of it will be available as long as I can afford to keep it. The photos will still be available for purchase I’ve also uploaded the whole 10 years archive into a new flickr account which is a great way to browse with large thumbnails. Bookmark it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddoi-archive/
* http://blog.topleftpixel.com/2013/07/04/and-thats-a-wrap/
I followed him on The Socials (via RSS/Atom) and it was always top quality stuff; no real 'filler' / fluff.
I wanted to do something but realized I could not do that for various reasons (travel, work, etc). However, I take enough photos regularly, and I think by the time my kids grow up, there will be good enough or even way better technology to parse through our photo collection and spit out the variations we like -- through the years, school days, birthdays, etc. -- a customized version of Moments.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ng9ykEtwS0
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Lotte
* http://www.franshofmeester.nl
This being the web there’s probably several, maybe even a Reddit.
I remember him from the song about the iPhone 4 antenna[1], the one Steve played at a keynote. Recently I've stumbled upon his YouTube channel and was shocked that he still, to this day continues with one song a day. It's very impressive to me.
What I find even more interesting, is that he's not some social media star, he usually gets 100-200 views on those videos. He does it for himself.
BTW, he also made the outro for Accidental Tech Podcasts, which has some listeners on this forum :)
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@JonathanMann
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKIcaejkpD4
The intro page [2] as some more info:
>There is nothing didactic in the photographs; they have a relaxed tone, are often sympathetic, often celebratory, often funny, never malicious. They are as careful as they are spontaneous, as observant as they are generous – there is no general theme, no general point being made except that their very specificity and variety points to the universal business of being alive. All together, they show us that however beautiful Cambridge is, however ancient its gatehouses, however medieval its lanes, or still and green its courts, it is also a place where students and strangers, tourists and locals, vault and dance and play.
1. https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/about-a-cambridge-diary-2/ 2. https://www.acambridgediary.co.uk/about-a-cambridge-diary/