Woolly Home

Photo Intro

January

February

2001: A Year in Polaroids

 Introduction

By Charlie Buchman Ellis

Near the end of 2000 I began a project that seemed simple: take a Polariod a day, a visual record of my life. The idea came from Brandenburg's collection of 90 photographs taken during a time when photography had grown stale for him. He allowed himself only one image a day, so I decided to do the same, except I extended the duration to a year and took as my subject, my life, rather than Brandenburg's north woods.

Two unexpected realities made it more difficult and complicated - and, therefore, richer - than I had expected. The simple unexpected was boredom, illness, forgetfulness. Some days I just didn't want to take a photo, the project itself had grown stale, or I was sick, or I forgot the camera.

The more complex unexpected was: What image do I make? I decided early on that my goal was one image that summarized or captured the essence of the day. How do I know which image captures the essence, or summarizes? And, often, the perfect image, like the perfect conversational gambit, came to me later, after the moment had passed.

Neither of these takes into account that I'm a verbal guy, not so comfortable with the visual, at least not with producing visuals. That is one of the reasons I decided to go ahead, but it does compromise the overall quality of each photo. At any rate I persevered, taking many photographs in each month of 2001, sometimes one a day.

The following is the result. I have not embellished the photos at all and the notes were ones I attached to the photo at the time, also not explained.