I’m not sure if this is “the” original but listening to the Spark podcast on the plane, I discovered this gem and had to share it.
The story behind how this site was discovered is interesting enough but the fact that Jamie Livingston took almost 7,000 photos for 18 years is astonishing. But the stories behind the photos are gripping. In 18 years in anyone’s life, it will be filled with everything from highly emotional to extremely mundane. This is life. And death. Jamie, a filmmaker from New York city died in October of 1997 at the age of 41. Shortly before he died of cancer, he got engaged. This is the photo of the engagement ring and the blurred figure in the back is his fiance. You can sense the sadness and irony in this image.
So as I approach the halfway point of my photos of the day for one year, I realize more and more that this is a diary of my life. Boring to most, but I’m trying to capture life each day. As I go through this process, I’m convinced more and more that visual literacy, images must be recognized by educators as more than icing on the cake of communication. Sometimes the addition of text can provide context, other times, the picture itself is enough. Unfortunately, our text bias schools continue to place photography and visual literacy well behind the writing. More and more I know this to be misguided.
Listen to the entire story, you’ll be glad you did.