Noah Kalina’s averaged face over 7,777 days

Noah Kalina has been taking a picture of himself every day since January 11, 2000. He posted time-lapse videos in 2007, 2012, and 2020. Last year was the 20th of the project.

Usually Kalina’s videos are a straight up time-lapse using every photo. But in this collaboration with Michael Notter, 7,777 Days shows a smoother passage of time. Notter used machine learning to align the face pictures, and then each frame shows a 60-day average, which focuses on an aging face instead of everything else in the background.

Tags: , , , ,

Man takes picture of himself every day for 20 years

In 2007, Noah Kalina posted a time-lapse video showing a picture of himself every day for six years. Pop culture swallowed it up. There was even a Simpsons parody with Homer. After another six years, it was a video for twelve years’ worth of photos. Kalina has kept his everyday project going, and the above is the new time-lapse for two decades.

This brings back graduate school memories for me as I argued for personal data collection as a diary instead of just for quantified self. I often led with Kalina’s project as a primary example. He ages, his background changes, and his camera improves, but the angle stays the same.

It’s a very tiny window into his life, played out over time, but I bet for Kalina it means a bit more. [via kottke]

Tags: ,