Dan Hanna: 17 Years of Self-Portraits in One Video

Artist/animator/filmmaker Dan Hanna has been photographing himself every day from two angles, for roughly 19 years (he started in 1991). In the video below, he shows the first 17 years' worth in a rough edit (a fancier version is coming later; as you can imagine, scanning and arranging all those photos is very time-consuming). Actually, the video only uses images from every second day in order to keep the video short. Hanna describes the rather amazing camera rig he built to take the photos like so:

...Every day I position myself in the center of this ring and take two simultaneous photos (180 degrees apart). The ring is marked off for the 365 days of the year and a pair of crosshairs (mounted on a sliding wooden fixture) are incremented along the circumference of the ring to line up with these markings. I use the crosshairs to position my head as nearly as possible in the center of the ring. So far, I've accumulated approximately 18.5 years worth of photos (the project was started in '91).

You can read more about the project, read FAQs about it (Hanna claims the shots only take about a minute a day), download a somewhat better-quality version of the video, and see photos of the rig on Hanna's website. But first, here's the video. Just watch and be amazed, as a man ages from 32 to 48 before your eyes.

See also: an alternate version by Steven Hoskins.

(Via Gizmodo Australia.)