Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Dad takes a photo a day for 21 years
Student nurse gets a unique birthday present
A student nurse received a special 21st birthday present – a picture of her taken on every day since she was born.
Dedicated dad Munish Bansal took the first photo on May 16, 1996 – and kept on snapping for 7,665 days.
The shots show Suman, who studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, happy, sad, asleep, at the swimming pool, in a washing basket and even wearing a witch’s hat.
Bookkeeper Mr Bansal uploaded them to the internet and put them into a 15-minute video montage he presented his daughter on her birthday.
He says he first started taking them to show family in India but it quickly turned into a hobby.
“I never thought it would carry on,” he said. “We used to keep photo albums but now all of the photos are on the computer and we just print off the ones we need.”
Suman, who hopes to graduate later this year, said: “I wanted to keep taking pictures because I knew it made my dad happy and allowed family to continue to see me grow.
“By this point it had also become part of my routine and I struggle to sleep if I have forgotten to take a photo.”
She said her favourite part of the video was watching her eyes.
“Later on in the video when I’m older, my eyes stay nearly in the same exact place,” she said.
“Focusing on them you can see everything else changing around them, like my hairstyle and expression.
“It’s quite amazing looking back on them all and I still cannot believe how many there are and that they are all of me.”
Mr Bansal, from Gillingham, has also created a collage of his daughter, made out of thousands of pictures of her.
Suman added: “I’m sure there are loads of pictures I would be embarrassed about – it’s hard to make a kid smile for every photo.”