'Passage of Time' Portrait Projects

• OPALKA 1965/ 1-∞ (1965–present) Roman Opalka, after every day of painting numbers in his studio, photographs his face. If only we could see documentation of the entire sequence.
• Carving: A Traditional Sculpture (1972) Eleanor Antin diets for 45 days. It is a performance piece, photo project, sculpture and a seminal work of feminist art.
• The Brown Sisters (1975–present) Nicholas Nixon photographs the Brown sisters.
• The March of Time (1976–present) Diego Golberg and family sit down on June 17 for a family ritual.
• One Year Performance (1980–1981) Tehching Hsieh punches a time clock hooked up to a camera in a gallery every hour on the hour for a year. A huge Thank You to Alberto Frigo for sending me the link! If you would like to buy me the One Year Performance DVD-ROM, send me an eMail.
• Portrait of Louise Anna Kubelka (1980–1998) Friedl Kubelka documents the development of her daughter, from birth to adulthood.
• The Downward Spiral (1983?–1997?) "Maria Ramos" as photographed by the New York City Police Department.
• Everyday (1987 February 23–present) Karl Baden is second only to Roman Opalka for the logevity and glorious perfection of his daily photo project. [added 2008 January 21]
• Time of my Life (1991 June 01–present) Dan Hanna spins with the sun in this daily aging project. [added 2008 February 04]
• daily performances (1999 July 24–present) Marc Tasman receives a package of Polaroid film and begins a ten-year process of daily performances in Polaroid
• La Photo-Sculpture (1999–present) Odile Marchoul discovers 'Photo-Vision' and decides to make identity pictures weekly.
• Noah K. Everyday (2000 January–present) Noah Kalina uses his video camera to try and pinpoint the stages in his life when he's changed. He contacted me a while back to eat food and talk all things obsessive self-portrait related, and now the project's online. Noah's a stand-up guy.
• Metabolismo alterado (2000?) Héctor Falcón seems to start bodybuilding for art's sake, though I can't be totally sure as I don't understand Spanish. [added 2008 January 21]
• Alarm Clock Self-Portaits (SnoozeButton) (2001?–2004?) Dean Baldwin hacks his alarm clock to shoot a digital photograph when he hits the snooze button. Check out his sleeping partners!
• Hocking DPP (2001 September–present) Pete Hocking takes a daily self-portrait and posts it to the internet. He also finds that he becomes the object of the bear community's desire, as well as a few jackasses'.
• Me (2001 November–present) Ahree Lee makes a nice video of three years of everyday photographs. [added 2006 September 08]
• eyemachine (2002 January 01–present) Andy Luginbühl takes the portraits, and then set up a system to animate the images with the eyes lined up. I did this with a year's worth of images manually a few years ago. I'd never do it manually again...
• 09h09 (2002 September 18–present) Jean-Michel Gobet takes a photo at 09:09 every day and blogs about it (yeah, that's right, blog is a verb). What's more amazing is that he's awake at 09:09 every day!
• Lebensbilder [Life Pictures] (2002 December, 2003 October, 2004 April–present) Tom, Ralf, and Michaela make the daily photo a German family affair.
• O's Daily Photo (2003 January 01–present) Orin's image collection was randomly found while I was self-servingly looking at my standings in various search engines. She definitely has more interesting t-shirts than I've seen lately. And that domain name is hilarious.
• Daily Jason (2003 January 06–present) Jason Fletcher let me know in January that he had started this, and I give him credit for sticking with it. This is the 'Daily Photo Project' with goofy faces and on crack.
• John Stone Fitness (2003 January 06–present) John Stone pasty and flabby --> --> --> John Stone tan and cut. Quite possibly the freakest thing I have ever seen.
• Russian DPP (2003 August 02–present) Vadim Malguine shaves his head and starts taking photographs.
• Daily Marqs (2003 August 27–present) Markus does the daily photo 3/4 shot.
• Jeden Tag eins mehr... (2003 September 25–present) German Stephan H. Schumann is yet another daily shot-maker.
• Twindex (2003 November 23–present) Welcome at[sic] the Daily Photo Project from Sven and Tobias Staude! Twins doing daily photos. It'll be really sad when one dies.
• Daily Photo Project (2003 November 23–present) Phil McCombs is another daily dude, though he has some serious lapses in documentation.
• Ellora Klein (2004–present) Arno Klein's working on the full documentation of daughter Ellora. Includes video. [added 2006 September 08]
• Self Portrait (2004 May 14–2005 September 03) Trey Bean documents his self portrait via Quicktime. [added 2005 October 30]
• :18 Project (2004 July–2006 January) Christine Gatti takes two photos 18 minutes after every hour, every day for 18 months. She takes one self-portrait, and then one of the environment she is in at that time. Amazing work.
• Olivia Project (2004 July 25–2004 December 25) Imelda's friend Olivia Juliana Lyles DeLuna gets her picture taken and her mom posts it on the web. How very cute! I think this project stopped at Christmas-time...bummer.
• Bent Lips (2004 July 25–present) Priscilla smiles, and smiles, and smiles. Let's hope she keeps it up for longer than a year! Sadly, gone.
• Me, Myself, and I > 27up (2004 September 16–present) Matthias Hupp starts the craze in Germany, in Black & White.
• Daily Fratze (2005 August 04–present) MC Winkels from Germany...
• Daily Fratze (2005 August 07–present) Michael Simons from Germany is apparently inspired by MC Winkels from Germany... Now a site that "is a small community centered around daily photo projects. You'll find a place with room for narcissism, discussion, in short: documented lives."
• Jeder-Tag (2006 January 01–present) Anthoney from Germany is yet another white guy who looks like he's in IT doing a daily photo.
• Russell Higgs (2006 July 21–present) Russell's only been at it for a couple months, but I am flabbergasted at the results so far. [added 2006 September 08]
• Everyday from Birth (2007 January 22–present) David P Craig's parents attempt to make him a daily-documented boy. [added 2008 January 21]
• everyday (2007 February 07–present) Mark Curry's another fine young lad making his way along the daily photo journey. [added 2008 January 20]
• Cheri Cheri Lady (2007 March 21–present) Kotla: “I’m imitating others, because I can't change.” [added 2008 April 21]
• 13 to Infinity (2007 April 07–present) David Hinds makes it over 9 months and hopes to continue FOREVER! [added 2008 January 06]

Obsessive Photo Projects

• 20 Sites n Years (1973–present) Tom Phillips photographs 20 South London sites annually, in order, at the same time of day. [added 2008 January 06]
• Invincible Cities (1977–present) Along the same lines as above, Camilo Jose Vergara has been documenting America's ghettos by photographing the built environment in Harlem, the South Bronx, Chicago, Newark and other places since the 1970's. [added 2008 January 06]
• ID400 (1998?) Tomoko Sawada gets in the photo booth for 400 different personas, including her own. [her site]
• First Day (1999 january–present) First Day Photography will sell you a photo of the sunrise on your special day.
• Eat 22 (2001 March–2002 March) Ellie Harrison documents everything she eats for one full year.
• Get In My Belly! (2002 October–present) Adam Seifer documents everything (not really) he eats.
• Pasta-Log Yet another documentation of food, this time, only pasta, and framed beautifully.
• American Mile Markers Matt Frondorf drives across the USA (New York to San Fran) taking a photo every mile.
• 30fpd: a day, a week, a year (2003 January 08–present) Aaron Ximm is making a movie of his life, one second at a time. [added 2008 January 06]
• Doors I Touched Today (1999 June 03) Fluxus Midwest researches the action of doors and knobs.
• Every Object Interaction (2003 September–present) Alberto Frigo photographs and catalogues every object he interects with. It seems like he has almost replaced one of his hands with a camera. At the time he sent me this link, there were 23'308 images entered into the database.
• 365 Polaroids (1997) Andy Walker presents a year's worth of polaroid self-portraits.
• One a Day Project (2002) Aimee Sealfon interacts with, then photographs, 365 people.
• The Shower Project (1999) Brian Benson's successful (?) attempt to shower with 100 different women.

Have another good link?

Send it to me at website@c71123.com