On Tuesday May 15th 2012, the Aday.org (www.aday.org) initiative will invite the entire world to participate in the largest and most comprehensive photographic documentation of a single day in human history. Whether an amateur with a mobile phone camera or a professional photographer, Aday.org asks anyone – and everyone – in possession of one of the world’s estimated one billion digital cameras to document their experiences of the day: uploading their images in order to create a visual archive of our lives today.
The images will form the biggest searchable online picture archive of its type, and the most striking photos will be used in a simultaneously-staged global exhibition in October 2012, and feature in a book entitled ‘A Day In The World’ (to be published in November 2012). For the purposes of maintaining this image archive for future generations, hard drives containing all of images from May 15th 2012 will be stored within a secure underground location.
Aday.org was devised by Stockholm-based non-profit organisation, Expressions of Humankind, which supports scientific research and education centred on the photographic image and the written word. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who sits on the Global Advisory Board for Aday.org (and will be contributing his own photographs on May 15th), comments: “Take this unique opportunity with me, and thousands of others around the world, to create a priceless collection of images, to boost understanding and enhance research and education.” Fellow Global Advisory Board member, Sir Richard Branson comments: “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 15.”
Joining the Archbishop in documenting their days are astronaut Andre Kuipers, currently stationed at the International Space Station 300km above the Earth’s surface, as well as Grammy-nominated singer, Robyn, former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Jan Eliasson – but so too are less immediately recognisable, but equally important individuals that have already signed-up to participate, including teenagers in Greenland, Japanese adults displaced by the Fukushima disaster, Moscow-based arts students, and psychoanalysts in Buenos Aires. Each person’s contribution will be of relevance to help document a day in all of our lives.
Aday.org seeks participants of all ages, backgrounds, and from every corner of our planet: each contribution as relevant and significant as the next person’s in creating this unprecedented snapshot of humanity.
To help get the largest number of people involved, Aday.org has already recruited hundreds of global ‘connectors’ – leading lights from the worlds of photography (including 30 World Press Photo winners), journalism and academia – who will both take part on the day and spread the word as well as encourage participation among their own social networks, intranets, mailing lists, or fan-bases.
How To Get Involved
In advance of May 15th all interested participants should register (for free) at www.aday.org to receive updates on the project and to access details on how to make the most of the day when the world photographs itself.
Participants will be asked to upload their images at www.aday.org (following the easy-to-use instructions) and are requested to link each submitted image to major themes such as ‘Home’ and ‘Work’. Within users’ profile spaces, participants will be able to sort work into distinct sub-sections named “my wall”, “my tools”, “my room”, “my energy”, “my transport”, “my people”, “my technology”: allowing users to search and share pictures along specific themes. Any upload of a photograph will be accompanied by unique data on who took the picture and where, what camera was used, and why the subject or topic was chosen. This categorisation will assist in the display of all of the images submitted, helping make the pictures searchable and comparable.
Participants will retain the copyright to their images, and pictures submitted will be used for future research, and never for commercial purposes. A book ‘A Day in the World’ – containing the best images – will be published in several language editions in November 2012. The project is open to anyone with a passion for photography. Each person can upload up to 10 images. All images must be uploaded within 5 days of May 15th.
The ADay.org website – containing full instructions – is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Arabic.
