‘Real-Life Truman Show’: Man has His Photo Taken Every Day from Birth
Back in 2012, Ian McLeod posted a video called 21 Years that starts with a sonogram of his son Cory in the womb and ends with a photo of Cory blowing out the candles on his 21st birthday cake.
Ian, from the U.K., had taken a photo of his son every day in the intervening two decades and when Cory reached adulthood he carried on his father’s work, continuing to take a daily selfie.
It means that the now 30-year-old Cory has had a photo taken of him every day since birth and he released the above video showing the entire epic project.
“Imagine having your whole life documented. A real-life Truman Show,” reads the blurb for the upcoming Cory autobiography.
Ian’s original video (below) received a staggering 6.6 million views and, along with Noah Kalina, is one of the original “selfie every day” videos.
“My mum and my dad were very artistic people and they met at art college, so they are creative people,” Cory tells Yorkshire Live.
“He said he had a glass of wine before I was born and he had an idea to make a flick book. This was obviously pre-internet and pre-digital so that was all it was going to be.
“Once he got to two years, he thought he would get to three years and then it got to four years and five years and just kept going. To me, it’s a very unique piece of art and I hope my dad gets some kind of recognition.”
Photo Mishaps
There are some gaps in the project, problems that photographers will recognize such as a whole month’s worth of pictures missing when the film in Ian’s camera wasn’t winding. The camera was stolen during a holiday in Chile causing the loss of yet more pictures and on other days Ian just plain forgot.
However, the doting father was consistent and would even ask Cory’s teachers to take a daily photo of him during school trips.
“In the early days of the project I never really knew where it was heading,” Ian tells the Yorkshire Evening Post.
“I hoped it might benefit Cory in some way. Now he has taken on the baton and we still don’t know where it is heading. It is amazing to see the project come together like this and see how it is of interest to so many people from around the world.”
Cory has taken the reins of the project as he’s transitioned into adulthood and has no plans to stop; hoping to become the first person ever to document his life photographically from cradle to grave.
“There’s no point in stopping now because I’ve come this far. I guess I’ll be the first person to do it from birth to death so it will be quite cool to see someone’s whole life,” adds Cory.
