In all aspects of life, age plays a big role in how you see the world — physically, visually, and mentally. What will you find when you give a disposable camera to 100 people, each representing an age between 1 and 100? The 100 Project aims to find out by recruiting photographers of all youths and sizes to see how they view the world around them.
You might think you’ll be able to guess the images produced at each stage of life, but you would be pleasantly surprised. Laith Beyhum, who represents all one-year-olds out there, provide pretty stunning photos that have nothing to do with toy blocks or baby bottles. In the photo to the right, it’s cute to note that this picture of a peacock shows the photographer’s height is eye-level, if not shorter, than the peacock itself. Her world is much more curious, as seen in the upward view of her adventure climbing the stairs or a tilted look at her mother walking against the sun.
At the other end of the spectrum, the oldest recruited photographer who’ve turned in his camera is 74-year-old Chuck Collins, and his photos primarily revolve around the neighborhood in which he presumably resides. Aside from the age factor, it’s interesting to see what these photographs tell about people in their daily adventures or interests since you’d assume people are only taking pictures that best represent themselves.
“As we’re inviting individuals to take part, we know that we should have the camera back within the space of a month,” The 100 Project creator Matthew Knight says. “Whilst it could be ambitious to think we could get 100 people signed up, one of every age, cameras out to them, returned, developed and posted, all within a year, it’ll be fun trying!”
Knight previously began a similar photography experiment called the Disposable Memory Project where he placed disposable cameras all over town to see what strangers come back with. While the project showed some successful and interesting pictures, only 30 of the 410 disposable cameras ever made it back. Luckily, since the project will assign cameras to individuals this time, lost equipment shouldn’t be much of an issue.
“The hard part will be finding the older participants, and getting the really young to take part too,” Knight says. “But that should be great fun, and we hope to meet some really amazing people along the way.”
Since The 100 Project began in January of this year, many age slots are still open for the taking. If your particular age is still available, you can apply to take part of the project by filling out a quick Google Form and hopefully someone will be in touch. You may be surprised how your photographs compare to those taken by someone much younger or older.
