Life in 4,748 Self-Portraits

It start­ed sim­ply enough in 1999. Jeff Har­ris, a pho­tog­ra­ph­er based in Toron­to, took his first self-por­trait, some­thing he has since repeat­ed every day. His visu­al diary now amounts to 4,748 pho­tos and they tell a very per­son­al sto­ry. They show the pass­ing of time, some fair­ly nor­mal moments, but also some dif­fi­cult ones. In Novem­ber 2008, Har­ris was diag­nosed with can­cer, and his expe­ri­ence with it — his surgery, radi­a­tion treat­ment, even­tu­al paral­y­sis in one leg — all gets visu­al­ly doc­u­ment­ed by his project. The video above, orig­i­nal­ly appear­ing on TIME’s web site, takes you inside Har­ris’ project. The clip runs 5 min­utes.

via @SteveSilberman