I'm a sucker for time-lapse sequences. Maybe it's my inner historian, but I love seeing the effects of time without taking a lot of it. I can still remember the day when I first encountered Noah Kalina's pioneering 6-year daily photo montage: I contemplated starting down that road myself but I quickly realized that I didn't particularly care to put forth the effort. I forgot about the genre until about an hour ago.
It was then that I caught Andy Baio link to Dan Hanna's Photo Aging Project wherein he took two photos a day for 17 years:
HOLY CRAP! That's some forethought and work. I was impressed. And so I started looking for similar, though less-formidable, videos. Boy did I find them!
[Programming note: I'm really torn between just providing links to the videos and actually embedding them inline. If I put them inline, then this is going to be one slow loading and long-ass entry. But if I just link to the video, then you're going to be a-clicking all day. I wonder which one I'll choose.]
- Ines Everyday: this is the one that got me interested in looking further into this. I guess it had seemed previously like a male thing and this made me realize that there was probably a bunch of interesting characters doing these videos. Main takeaways: she changes her hairstyle a lot and seems to enjoy covering her neck.
- Girl takes pic of herself every day for three years: a solid entry by an Asian lady. Main takeaway: she went through a lot of glasses in three years.
- She takes a photo every day: the 200-day entry in an ongoing project. Main takeaways: she really changes her hairstyle a lot, has a lot of earrings, and was that mime makeup? Yes, it was.
- Growing a beard: well-done piece. Main takeaway: he's a slow beard grower. My friend Larry could have made that video in a week tops.
- Ellora Daily Photo reaches 1282: photos from birth on of a little girl. Main takeaway: I wonder what happened that required her head to be shaved on day 915.
- 9 months of gestation in 20 seconds: it's like watching a bell curve form. Main takeaway: the guy behind it is quite a goober.
- Madeline, Five Years - Photo a Day: nice try, but 198 photos is not "Photo a Day." Still, pretty adorable.
- Lee takes a photo of himself every day for three years: nothing special until 50 seconds in. Yowza!
- Michael takes a photo of himself every day for 1 year: teenage boy going from 16 to 17. Main takeaways: lots of hairstyles and why would anyone have that clown picture on their wall.
- Puppy Photo Everyday: Labrador going from 7 weeks to 6 months and completely busting the "Everyday" claim. Still, it's a puppy. Come on!
- Amanda takes a photo of herself every day for 2 years: watch the transformation from 14 to 16. She's going to really appreciate this when she's older.
- Ryan takes a photo of himself every day for 400 days: a black guy takes on the project. Main takeaway: what's the deal with the purple hair at 23 seconds in?!
- Sven takes a picture of himself everyday for 3 years and Tobias takes a picture of himself everyday for 3 years: twin brothers from 27 to 30. Is it wrong that I only watched one?
- Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project: high quality with much better stabilization. He's also got the pictures if the video wasn't enough.
I left off the countless parodies, which were often funny. I think they're strangely compelling because the subjects are real people—not a seedling, for example—and they have the nostalgic appeal of a yearbook with the intervening, gradual tweening that's normally missing.