Every day, from 31 March 1979 through 25 October 1997, Jamie Livingstone took a Polaroid instant photo of himself, his family, his friends, or his world.
It’s an extraordinary collection, now available on the Photo of the Day website.
Chris Higgins told the story on Mental Floss.
Higgins also linked to an lovely little film by Charles and Ray Eames detailing the technology underlying the project, the Polaroid SX-70 instant camera. The SX-70 first enabled many of the uses that digital cameras now find. That camera was also a hacker’s dream, which could be cannibalized for at least two crucial technologies: The flat battery pack, and the sonar range finder. (That last is still a mainstay of many robotic navigation and detection systems.)
You may know the Eames by their chairs, or by another of their films, Powers of Ten.
Speaking of digital photography, don’t miss this discussion of how current high-end professional digital cameras, especially the Nikon D3x, are being marketed. It’s a bit over my head (I’m only getting maybe a third of the discussion points), but I believe it’s worthwhile for anyone considering the purchase of anything other than the most basic point-and-shoots. [Via Cold Fury.]