Today

On his 30th birthday, Jonathan Harris snapped a photo and posted it online. This became the start of a daily ritual in which he compressed 24 hours into a single image accompanied by some text. He photographed landscapes, people and objects, and the writings included short poems, recollections, dry observations and highly personal outpourings. Sometimes it would take him just 15 minutes, and sometimes up to six hours. Then suddenly, after 440 days, he stopped. Documentation was dominating his daily life instead of the other way around. But while it lasted, Today was a way to live more intensely, more in the now, and more conscious of passing time. After hitting 30, Harris realized just how little he understood his own life. Today was his attempt to distill the essence of each day and to archive it, so that it would never be lost—and so that others would remember that essence.