Weathering Time

I have been photographing myself since 1982. The 2,500+ photographs include my body from head to toe, as well as some of my environment. Each month is captured on one roll of film. If I fail to take a picture the film is advanced so a blank image is recorded, creating a visual calendar. I am also making reenactment photographs, of some of the more iconic images, in order to record changes in visually dramatic ways. Sometimes friends and family are in the photographs and time weathers their bodies as well. There are no edits. Every photograph is presented—even if I look bad on a particular day, pets act out, or I fail to get in the picture before the shutter is released. I record happy moments (e.g. my honeymoon) and sad ones (my parents on their deathbeds). It’s not just my body that changes: fashion and hairstyles evolve; pets come and go; typewriters, analog clocks, and telephones with cords disappear; and finally, film gives way to digital and the computer replaces the darkroom. Indeed, the photographs underscore the physical and environmental changes that have occurred over the past thirty-three years—from my youth to the dawn of my old age.