Today, people all over the world will be reaching for their cameras to take part in a global documentation project of epic proportions. This unique photographic event has been initiated by the Swedish non-profit foundation Expressions of Humankind and is being supported by a highly respected global advisory council and a special scientific council. The idea behind the initiative is to use the power of photography to create, share and inspire perspectives on daily life.
Professional photographers and amateurs alike are being encouraged to take a snapshot of their daily life and map their images around three main categories: home, work and connections. The images will then be available to view and explore online, with some being selected to feature in a book to be published in October 2012 entitled A Day in the World. Every single image will be saved for future research and to inspire the generations that follow.
Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and member of the Global Advisory Council says: “This great project is about real people taking pictures of real life in real-time. Please get your camera and share your life on May 15th.”
The idea of creating a crowd-sourced snapshot of the world, documented through photography, certainly is a fascinating one and it will be interesting to see the final results once they are made available. But the question that just begs to be asked is whether it really is possible to document our collective human history with such an initiative and in just one day.
Sure a photograph of your most loved item in your home and the one you dislike most says a lot about who you are as a person, but what can it really tell us about humanity? Or do these small details add up to paint a far bigger picture of humanity?