Boston College professor turns 27 years of selfies into video
A 61-year-old college professor whose self-portraits predate the so-called selfie craze by two decades has turned his photographs into an ongoing art project.
Karl Baden, who teaches photography at Boston College, has been taking black-and-white photos of himself almost every day since Feb. 23, 1987, when he was 34. Using the same camera and striking the same pose, Baden has amassed 9,855 photos over 27 years.
"It's a project where I'm interested in what happens to my face and flesh," Baden told Boston's WCVB-TV.
Baden, who kept his hairstyle and facial hair virtually the same for the project, says he's missed just one day — in 1991 — of selfie-taking. The reason? He "forgot."
The resulting video of Baden's face is strangely mesmerizing.
In 2013, "selfie" was declared the word of the year by the Oxford University Press.
Judy Pearsall, editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries, said the word "selfie" was first used in 2002 on an Australian online forum, but usage wasn't widespread until around 2012.
