Long before selfies became a way of life, this Alaska man began to take pictures of himself every day. Now, 16 years later, Jonathan Keller has released an extraordinary time-lapse video consisting of a whopping 5,840 pictures of his face! The three-and-a-half minute video shows his transformation from a 22-year-old young adult to his current 39-year-old self.
Keller’s project, titled ‘Living My Life Faster’, began on October 1, 1998. Ever since, he’s been taking one picture of himself every single day, wearing the same emotionless expression. His goal, it seems, is to show that the daily changes to his appearance are almost insignificant when viewed in chronological order. But the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures show that he has indeed aged visibly.
Interestingly, Keller said that he started the project just to prove a point to his girlfriend. “The project began out of spite,” he said. “I had just purchased a digital camera (Nikon CoolPix 900) and my girlfriend at the time asked me why I bought it and what I was going to do with it. I explained but she remained unconvinced and asked if I was “going to use it every day” with sarcastic intention. I told her yes, and resolved to do so. Inception!”
But it quickly turned into something more meaningful for him. The project “focuses on the differences that one can see in the self from day to day,” but is actually a “documentation of the changes his face underwent in the long-term.”
“Initially, I thought of the project focusing on the differences that one can see in the self from day to day,” he said. “As the project grew and grew, it became more about the process of the whole. I began to look at the long-term changes that occur parallel to the short term changes.”
Although he’s released a video, Keller says that he plans to continue taking selfies until the day he dies. “Only then will it be complete, and worth its true value,” he said. “Hopefully the completion date is far off, but you never know, right?”
“Unfortunately, i won’t ever see it finished. It’s really a heckuva Catch-22 situation I’ve set up for myself,” he joked.
