BOSTON // Long before they were called selfies, Karl Baden snapped a simple black and white photo of himself. Then he repeated it, every day, for the next three decades.
Mr Baden’s “Every Day” project officially turns 30 on Thursday and he says he has no intention of stopping. The stark contemplation on mortality and aging has prompted some to dub the Boston College professor the unwitting “father of the selfie”.
The 64-year-old Cambridge resident grumbles at comparisons to the pouty face, self-congratulatory portraits that fill Instagram and Facebook. But he recognises the ubiquity of the “selfie” – a word that didn’t become widespread until this decade – has helped raise the profile of the project, which has been exhibited in art galleries in Boston, New York City and elsewhere over the years.
“If it wasn’t for the selfie craze, I’d probably be slogging along in anonymity as usual,” Mr Baden joked this week. “Which is sort of what I had expected.
What makes the project work is that it reflects a number of universal themes, from death to man’s obsession with immortalising himself in some way, said Howard Yezerski, a Boston gallery owner who has exhibited the project on two occasions.
“It’s both personal and universal at the same time,” he said. “He’s recording a life, or at least one aspect of it that we can all relate to because we’re all in same boat. We’re all going to die.”
Robert Mann, a New York City gallery owner that exhibited Baden’s work on its 10th anniversary, says he’s impressed with how Mr Baden has stuck to his process. “Watching Karl age (gracefully) in front of the camera has been an honour,” he said.
Mr Baden quietly launched his project on February 23, 1987, the day after Andy Warhol died and nearly two decades before Facebook emerged. He tries to remain faithful to that first image, posing with the same neutral facial expression and using the same 35mm camera, tripod, backdrop and lighting.
“The act itself is like brushing your teeth,” he said. “I’ll just take the picture and get on with the rest of my day. It’s not a holy ritual or anything.”
Mr Baden has taken other pains to maintain the same aesthetic. He has consciously not grown a beard or moustache, and his hair remains simply styled.
“I have to turn all these variables into constants so that I’m not distracting from the aging process,” Mr Baden explained.
Besides mortality, Mr Baden says the project touches on the notions of obsession, incremental change and perfection.
“As much as I try to make every picture the same, I fail every day,” he said. “There’s always something that’s a little different, aside from the aging process.”
Approaching 11,000 photos, the changes in Mr Baden’s appearance over time don’t appear dramatic. But in 2001, Mr Baden underwent chemotherapy to treat prostate cancer and became noticeably thinner.
The cancer is now in remission and, as later pictures show, Mr Baden quickly bounced back. The only lasting change from that time, he says, has been his eyebrows; they never quite grew back.
And there’s been just one day over the past 30 years where Mr Baden admits he neglected to take a photo: October 15, 1991. “It was a dumb moment of forgetfulness,” he said.
* Associated Press
Company%20profile
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Jigra
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Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Temple numbers
Expected completion: 2022
Height: 24 meters
Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people
Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people
First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time
First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres
Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres
Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor
MATCH INFO
Brescia 1 (Skrinia og, 76)
Inter Milan 2 (Martinez 33, Lukaku 63)
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
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The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
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Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
Married Malala
Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.
The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.
Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.
How it works
1) The liquid nanoclay is a mixture of water and clay that aims to convert desert land to fertile ground
2) Instead of water draining straight through the sand, it apparently helps the soil retain water
3) One application is said to last five years
4) The cost of treatment per hectare (2.4 acres) of desert varies from $7,000 to $10,000 per hectare
BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
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