Selfies have become an indispensable part of life, but it is difficult to imagine that there are examples of selfies taken 30 years ago too. February 23, 2017 has become a significant year for Karl Baden, a US professor working in Cambridge. Thirty years ago in distant 1987 he began to take his “selfies” on a daily basis and this year he organized an exhibition of his photos called “Thermographs”.
Many years ago he organized an experiment that demonstrates how a person gets older with every passing day. To make the experiment clear and accurate he made black-and-white selfies using the same camera and the same background. For today he has made more than 11,000 photos of himself.
Today Karl Baden is 64 and he exhibits his photos in Boston, New York city. As his project has been affected by a selfie craze now he is incredibly popular in Instagram and Facebook as well. At the same time, he is rather critical to publications of selfies by young people in the social networks as he refers that to egocentrism.
The project is very important for today as it reflects a universal theme of human’s immortality. It is clearly noticeable how a professor has changed with years. There were ultimate changes in his weight, greyish hair and increased number of wrinkles. All that is consequences of the anti-cancer therapy which he had to undergo 16 years ago. At the same time, he does not stop his project and will continue to make his “selfies” until he has enough strength and stamina to do that.