Remembering Friends

 I love an out of the blue call from an old friend! What a treat.

This evening I received one from someone I have known now from 20 years, my friend Chris Wangro, he lives upstate NYC with his family.  I usually hear from him once or twice a year via email or a quick call.

Chris was my first boss when I moved to NYC, which I think might have been Winter 2016.  He gave me my first job, we became good friends and worked together for many years.  

During that first year Wangro's best friend Jamie had gotten very sick with brain cancer and passed away, I remember helping them plan Jamie's wedding at Chris' house and shortly after the mourning of his loss.

Tonight as we were talking I said something in reference to time, "remember Jamie was still alive then" Had it really been 20 years?

Chris shared with me something so special I am bursting to share it with you.  Jamie had been an artist, who documented 18 years of his life by taking a Polaroid photo everyday of his life from 1979 until he died in 1997. In 2007, his friends had taken the photos in an effort to put together a 10 year celebration of Jamie's life, they scanned them all online in order to reproduce the pictures.  A journalist saw the website and was intrigued by what it could be, he wrote a story based on what he thought happened.

The article took on a life of it's own and various news outlets reported on it, Jamie was touted as the father of Instagram (or at least the idea of daily documentation) and celebrated worldwide, the photos now live on a website and from what I understand millions of people around the world have enjoyed taking Jamie's journey with them.  Millennials even use the day of their birth pic as their social media photo.

Kinda neat right? I love this, I'm sad for the loss of Jamie for people who knew and loved him, but I'm elated and inspired that he lives on forever on the internet. 

LINKS:
photooftheday.hughcrawford.com
www.mentalfloss.com/article/18692/he-took-polaroid-every-day-until-day-he-died

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