A son who had his photo taken every day for 30 years by his devoted dad has now taken the reins on the lifelong project by continuing to take a selfie every single day. The pair has even compiled their massive image collection into a moving timelapse video.
Cory McLeod was born in North Yorkshire, England, in 1991. On the day of his birth, Cory’s father, Ian McLeod of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, started taking photos.
“My mum and my dad were very artistic people and they met at art college,” Cory, now 31, said, according to Newsflare. “[My dad] 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.”
After taking a photo of Cory every day for two years, Ian decided to continue. “He thought he would get to three years,” Cory said. “Then it got to four years and five years, and just kept going.”
When Cory left home to attend college in Leeds and later went traveling through 61 different countries, he vowed to add to his dad’s collection by taking a selfie every day. Together, the pair has compiled 11,000 images into a touching eight-minute timelapse video chronicling the first 30 years of Cory’s life.
Some photos simply show Cory’s face through infanthood, childhood, and adolescence while some give context by showing events in his life, such as blowing out candles on a birthday cake, the first day of school, and his brief stint in professional soccer.
Even Cory’s teachers were involved in the project since Ian enlisted them to take the daily photo during school trips away from home. Nonetheless, there are a couple of gaps in Ian and Cory’s record; an entire month’s worth of photos were lost when Cory’s camera failed to wind, another bundle was lost when his camera was stolen during a family holiday in Chile, and on a couple of occasions, they simply forgot.
“It sounds easy taking a photo every day but it wasn’t,” Cory said. “Obviously I had no choice in the first couple of years, but when I became a teenager it became really annoying because only [my dad] saw the vision. I would be at a friend’s house, and he would have to drive over and take my photo before midnight because he never wanted to cheat. ... I think my friend’s parents probably thought it was weird.”
On Cory’s 21st birthday, Ian compiled a shorter timelapse video of his photo collection thus far, amassing over six million views on YouTube. Since his photos had been taken in the pre-digital age, Ian’s video was compiled of printed photos from physical photo albums.
The gravity of the father-son duo’s shared project hit home for Cory, who acknowledged his dad’s “unique piece of art” and hoped it would get further recognition.
Ian said: “We still have a cupboard at home in the living room with all the daily photos. In the early days of the project I never really knew where it was heading. I hoped it might benefit Cory in some way. Now, he has taken on the baton. ... 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.”
He said: “I just felt there was more to the story, and that it wasn’t just photos because there [are] stories behind those photos. It’s covering my whole life from growing up at school, being bullied, going to university, dealing with anxiety, starting a business, and getting dropped from Leeds United.
“It’s about being held at gunpoint and knifepoint, and traveling across India and other countries. There’s a lot in there.”
Having “come this far,” Cory has no intention of stopping taking photos and thinks he may be the first person to chronicle a life from birth to death in this way. “[I]t will be quite cool to see someone’s whole life,” he said.
