Dad takes photo of his daughter every day for 18 years | Hacker News Reader

Dad takes photo of his daughter every day for 18 years

essentialkids.com.au

36 pointsyitchelle45 comments

I'm surprised at all the negative comments. I think this project is really neat! Thanks to smartphones, I already have pictures of my daughter almost every day, just by happenstance. And I look at them almost every day. She's only 18 months old, but I'm already missing when she was a little potato-shaped baby.

It's not for her, it's for me. Something for me to reminisce over when I'm old and she's moved out of the house. A way for me to remember that period in time when she thought her mother and I were the whole world. A period of time that will pass for her, even though for her mother and me she'll always be our whole world. Those photos are my reward for diapers changed, faces wiped, marker washed off the walls, and cheerios vacuumed out of the divots on our tufted couch.

I love it as well. My son is 27 months old and I hear you, he changes everyday and I miss just being able to look at him as he sits there staring at me!

As far as other comments that pertain to enjoying life instead of taking pictures, I would just say that it takes me 5 minutes (if that) to take a few pictures as my son plays and the enjoyment I get from looking at those pictures outweighs anything I may have potentially missed.

Out of curiosity, which comments did you interpret as negative? At the moment, I don’t see any that are distinctly negative, so I’m curious about how our perceptions differ.

As of the moment of writing this reply, the highest-ranked top-level comments below mine are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789558; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789437;

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789400.

I don't feel like my taking a lot of photos keeps her from being an independent person, nor do I think it unduly intrudes on her privacy, nor do I think I'm missing out by taking photos instead of just enjoying the experience.

I'll be proud to see my daughter become her own person and find people she cares about more than me. She'll grow up and move on. But I can't. Part of me gets stuck in each instant in time where I look at her and know she's the most important thing in the world. So the way I see it, if I'm going to be hung up on these moments forever, I'm entitled to have pictures of them.

I used to take photos, a lot, and uploading quite a bit to Flickr and other. But then, I started thinking if my daughter won't want when she grows up. She is an individual and may want something else entirely different. She is not an extension of me. I have reduced my photo/video of her. I do upload for families, relatives but have reduced the frequency and quantity drastically, have completed deleted her Flickr Account too. I want her to be her and let her define her life when she know what's happening around her.

Perhaps, just my thought and way of looking at life and the people around.

Why not take the photos and let her decide when she is old enough whether to keep them or not?

Interesting thought and perfectly valid.

I tend to avoid taking lots of photos these days and concentrate on doing a few good ones. They are usually snapshots of life as it was at a certain time rather than posed or set up photos. Occasionally I take a photo of something that is very strong in my mind when I see it.

The future is changing fast, and so are privacy implications. I'm glad you've recognized this.

I see my friends post pictures of their babies/kids all the time on social media. It's their right, but what's to say in the future that the then-grown kids will want their pictures made public?

The pictures can be alright as long as they are in moderation and not embarrassing.

The thing that really really irks me the wrong way is people complaining about their kids on social media. "Johnny is being SUCH a brat today and raising hell." In my opinion that is just really unacceptable to publicly broadcast that in a manner that basically archives it (somewhere) forever. What will Johnny feel when he reads that comment in the future? I understand calling/emailing/texting a friend to vent, but not publicly. I know someone who basically all she uses facebook for is 1) posting pictures of her in yoga class doing all the positions wrong 2) bitching about her children non-stop and 3) talking about how WONDERFUL her husband is.

People these days are so busy photographing, videoing, posting crap to twitter to see if people approve of what they're doing... They're missing out on actually enjoying and living life.

Look at concerts - a sea of idiots holding up their phones, videoing an event, watching through their silly little phone. Enjoy the event! Buy the official DVD later if you want.

So IMHO, this seems pretty obsessive and extreme.

OK End of rant...

I would agree with you ... there are many individuals who only see the city they're visiting through a lens. On the other hand, 30-60 seconds a day to capture a lifetime of changes doesn't seem overly arduous. I have lots of memories I wish I'd captured via a photograph or journal entry but it's a bit too late now. This is quite a keepsake.

While I agree with you, he did start this project 18 years ago. 1996. Definitely way before the cellphone generation.

I wonder if he started out on film or digital from the beginning.

Canon introduced its first Powershot in 1996, with 0.5 MPixels.

Phones at concerts aren't so they can re-watch them themselves, but so they can share the pictures / videos with friends.

> to see if people approve of what they're doing...

So completely disagree that that has anything to do with it. Its inherently social, and imho in a way its enhancing the moment.

> a sea of idiots holding up their phones, videoing an event, watching through their silly little phone. Enjoy the event!

A sea of critics, wasting their time passing judgement on people. Enjoy the show!

> so they can share the pictures / videos with friends.

And 99% of the time the quality is so awful that nobody cares. It's just to show people they were at that gig or that event.

> imho in a way its enhancing the moment.

I really don't feel like looking at something through a lens or holding your camera is enhancing the moment. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has a scene like that where the photograph don't take a picture just to appreciate the moment, because it's beautiful.

> wasting their time passing judgement on people.

well you're right on this one, to each their own I guess.

I'll agree with you, this is a bit obsessive an extreme.

Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1314/

Before visiting the link I thought the guy had his daughter line up in front of a white wall every single day so he could do a dramatic time-lapse sort of thing. Maybe that would have been a bit obsessive. All he did was a regular snapshot wherever it was convenient. This is no more obsessive than brushing your teeth every morning.

In fairness, I stand in front of a white wall every day to brush my teeth. I could easily imagine connected a mounted camera wirelessly to the button on my electric tooth brush and not having to think about it.

Of course, this comes from a person who already has his phone record its gps posistion every 5 minutes.

I suppose there is an optimal ratio. While I agree some people overuse it, I still find it unbelievably awesome the fact that we carry a device in our pocket capable of registering a moment so that we can remember it later or share with others.

Please don't call me an idiot because my idea of fun is different to yours.

http://xkcd.com/1314/

I think a greta parallel is hunting and fishing. It's all very well to say, just enjoy the lake and buy your fish later. In reality, it's hard to "just enjoy" some things. We need to interact with them somehow or talk to people about them or something.

Same with hunting. Lots of people say that what they enjoy is tracking, stalking. Watching animals for hours and getting to understand them. You could theoretically do all those things without a rifle… but you won't. People who are obsessive blob hunters know more about blobs than anyone else. They know the environment better than anyone else and they learn all sorts of interesting skills along the way.

Also, at the risk of sounding troll-ish (I hope I'm not though). Adding IMHO here sounds a bit like 'I'm not racist but.' I think humbleness is overrated, but that isn't a humble opinion.

Photography is a fun hobby for many people. It is an experience itself. And who cares if people are posting on Facebook and Twitter. I enjoy looking at my friends vacations and get ideas for things to do.

But I agree with you on concerts, that is just rude to take photos while ruining the view for people behind you.

And I love this project. It seems a natural project for any photographer parent. I am sure we will this more and more. Not obsessive at all.

> who cares if people are posting on Facebook and Twitter

It is the sheer volume of photos that I believe bothers a lot of people. "oversharing." You get sick of the same baby every single day. Also craving extreme volumes of attention makes you come off as narcissistic. A lot of the time those photos aren't for them, they are to present to others in order to gain attention.

Being photographed every day just feels like any normal day as I have grown up with it my whole life

This is interesting since it feels like there's a clear and deep message in it about what will happen to privacy in the future.

"I will continue for next few months, Suman wants to continue, but once she has gone to university, it might be difficult for her, but let's see."

Selfies?

The thing about privacy is that it's not a fundamental belief written into our genes, it's a derived believe arising from our social experiences and written into tradition. Our social inclination towards privacy developed because lack of privacy causes problems; social gossip, problems with getting jobs in small towns because everybody "knows" whatever it is, busybodies being able to stick their nose in things, etc.

We're in a weird time right now where there's massive info gathering, but not all that many concrete manifestations going on in our real lives, so of course the young'uns are all like "What's the big deal? So I get some ads for the types of movies I like, so what?" And in a big city, the small-town social pressures don't exist, and the internet brings the "big city" to smaller and smaller locales. But rest assured that once the digital busybodies catch up and we live through some sort of technocratic totalitarian nightmare where grimacing when the picture of $BIG_BROTHER comes on in your private home is grounds for losing your job, once that regime is overthrown, privacy rights will come back with a vengeance.

In the meantime I'm not sure how to avoid some variant on that outcome without simply living through it. I can't tell you how excited I am. I can only hope that we learn our lessons before the full flowering of the words I use actually manifests.

But rest assured that once the digital busybodies catch up and we live through some sort of technocratic totalitarian nightmare where grimacing when the picture of $BIG_BROTHER comes on in your private home is grounds for losing your job, once that regime is overthrown, privacy rights will come back with a vengeance.

My compatriots don't seem more worried about their privacy than the average US citizen, from what I can tell, even though we just celebrated 40 years since we overthrew our fascist dictatorship (which had an active political police and plenty of informants). It seems the effects wear off much too soon.

I find it funny how this article was 'written by a reporter'.

The story was lifted from the Daily Mail, and it cites a quote from the Huffington Post. The quote that was in the Huffington Post was also in the Daily Mail article. So, at a guess, given that the story is from somewhere in Kent, the Daily Mail got there first. Or did they? Their pictures cite 'Rex Features', so I guess the story came through them.

A quick Google confirms this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiYQbL0Kb1Q

How can 'reporters' do no original reporting and call themselves 'reporters'?

Do they just report what is on the internet? And not give the links they used?

Incidentally the Dad has been making this newsworthy for quite a few years.

There was the 16th birthday. Further back, the 13th birthday:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1181540/Smile-The-pr...

There may have been money with 'Rex Features', that wouldn't be such a bad 18th birthday gift, but that can't be included in the narrative as it spoils the story.

Anyway, I just wish these 'reporters' did more than just copy and paste.

Would be interesting to see at which point face recognition software stops recognizing her, given a training set of present-time pictures...

Every single day? She saw her father every day? Didn't this kid go away on weekend trips? Camping? Didn't her father go on travel or something? I wonder if this affected her growing up, her father never letting her explore the outside world without him for fear that he'll miss a picture??

I remember spending weekends at my friends houses, whole weeks during the summer with my grandma and some weeks with my cousin and her family. Going to overnight summer camp. Went on a few overnight trips with my aunt and uncle and one with my friend's family. Those are some of the very very best times of my childhood. I'm sad she missed out.

I know quite a few people who spent several summers growing up with family in a completely different geographical location on the other side of the country.

I find the idea of a detailed 18 year time lapse to be pretty cool. If someone is willing to devote that much effort to the idea then more power to them. They seem like harmless photos to me.

Later on in life even 1 photo a week or 1 a month would be plenty of photos to see a detailed time lapse.

Seeing a time-lapse version would be awesome.

Like Noah Kalina [1] did.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPPzXlMdi7o

This one was even better... really awesome in fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN_jcom8TR4

Edit: This version has a better soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH1x5aRtjSQ

My god, that was depressing. And I'm not even sure why.

Personally I thought it was rather awesome, and not at all depressing.

Though it does make me happy that my kid's a boy as I'm fairly certain I'd have issues living with someone that "girly", (and from the video she's not particularly extreme, but that would still be too much for me (As I stand today, I would of course just have to do some changing - and lots of tomboy lessons.)

I figure with the first of those years it must have been hard (no digital yet, scanning them afterwards). I also think that the chances are quite large that the measurable fraction of all the kids born in the last 5 years or so will find that at least one picture taken of them every week will survive in digital form for a long time, whether they like it or not. And possibly more frequently than that.

Consumer digital cameras have been around for 20 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake

A friend of mine had a QuickTake 100 very early on. I got a digital Kodak camera not long after when I went travelling. I seem to remember they took off pretty quickly (amongst nerds at least).

I think it's a pretty cool project for father & children bonding. I wrote down some thoughts down in "The Future of Our Past" (quick read I promise!): http://nguonthieng.com/thirty-ba-muoi/the-future-of-our-past...

That poor girl. I quickly get tired of posing for a photo every day.

And at the least, there could have been a gif/video similar to this[0].

[0]:http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2013/9/2/t...

Most of the smiles look quite forced, there are one or two unposed ones in the series and they look like it is a completely different person.

Is that seriously the same woman?

were those skulls on her shirt in the mosaic? An odd choice given the context.

I saw one of these on /b/ the first time with the child being a blonde girl. You can only imagine the comments...

Wow really awesome :)

I've created an app specifically for such purposes.

The app called Picr and is available on the app store. Maybe someone will do his own every day project.

http://www.picr.info/app

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