A contemplation of mortality
Man who has taken photo of himself every day for three decades has no intention of stopping and dislikes selfie comparison
BOSTON // Long before they were called selfies, Karl Baden snapped a simple black- andwhite photo of himself. Then he repeated it, every day, for the next three decades.
Mr Baden’s “every day” project officially turned 30 yesterday and he said he has no intention of stopping. The stark contemplation on mortality and aging has prompted some to dub the Boston College professor the unwitting “father of the selfie”.
The 64-year-old Cambridge resident grumbles at comparisons with the pouty face, self-congratulatory portraits that fill Instagram and Facebook.
But he recognises that the rampant spread of the selfie – a word that did not become widespread until this decade – has helped raise the profile of the project, which has been exhibited in art galleries in Boston, New York City and elsewhere.
“If it wasn’t for the selfie craze, I’d probably be slogging along in anonymity as usual,” Mr Baden said this week. “Which is sort of what I had expected.”
What makes the project work is that it reflects a number of universal themes, from death to man’s obsession with immortalising himself in some way, said Howard Yezerski, a Boston gallery owner who has exhibited the project on two occasions.
“It’s personal and universal at the same time,” he said.
“He’s recording a life, or at least one aspect of it that we can all relate to because we’re all in same boat. We’re all going to die.”
Robert Mann, a New York City gallery owner who exhibited the work on its 10th anniversary, said he was impressed with how Mr Baden stuck to his process. “Watching Karl age in front of the camera has been an honour,” he said.
Mr Baden quietly launched his project on February 23, 1987, the day after Andy Warhol died and nearly two decades before Facebook emerged.
He tries to remain faithful to that first image, posing with the same neutral facial expression and using the same 35mm camera, tripod, backdrop and lighting.
“The act itself is like brushing your teeth,” he said. “I’ll just take the picture and get on with the rest of my day. It’s not a holy ritual or anything.” Mr Baden has taken other pains to maintain the same aesthetic. He has not grown a beard or moustache and his hair remains simply styled.
“I have to turn all these variables into constants so that I’m not distracting from the aging process,” Mr Baden said.
Besides mortality, Mr Baden said the project touched on the notions of obsession, incremental change and perfection.
“As much as I try to make every picture the same, I fail every day,” he said. “There’s always something that’s a little different, aside from the aging process.”
Approaching 11,000 photos, the changes in Mr Baden’s appearance over time do not appear dramatic. But in 2001, he underwent chemotherapy to treat prostate cancer and became noticea- bly thinner. The cancer is now in remission and, as later pictures show, Mr Baden quickly bounced back.
The only lasting change from that time, he said, has been his eyebrows; they never quite grew back. There has been just one day over the past 30 years where Mr Baden admitted neglecting to take a photo: October 15, 1991. “It was a dumb moment of forgetfulness,” he said.