Kevin Kelly

December 27, 2007

A lifelog, or lifeblog, is an attempt to fully document every second, every action, every interaction, every keystroke, every conversation of one’s life. In this sense it is quantitative as it accumulates data about a person’s daily activities. But among lifeloggers there is a subgroup of photo lifeloggers who are merely content to photographicly record their life in detail. There are many photologgers who take a portrait of themselves everyday. 

One of the longest running of these daily guys, JK, now has a daily 8-year series of himself. He recently turned that series into a wonderful and mesmerizing timelapse animation.

This fellow JK also maintains a list of other maniacal photologgers here. Daily portraits seem to be a big thing in Germany. Some like to keep the photo constant from day to day in an almost clinical uniformity. Others are committed to dressing themselves up to maximize diversity from day to day.  But the obsessive nature needed to maintain anything daily for years shows up in a few really obsessive photologgers. One guy takes a picture of whatever is in his right hand for the first time that day. Here is an excerpt from part of his day on December 6, 2007.

It’s an odd collection only because its trouble to take it. Someday when cameras will film our lives 24/7, this degree of documentation won’t be freakish.