A friend of mine introduced me to an app called “One Second Everyday” (1SE APP). Its purpose is just that: to record one second of each day for however long you’d like. I started documenting my daily life on May 4th, 2013 and continued doing so for a whole year.
At first I was very go-ho about it, eagerly going out of my way to do and see exciting things that I could capture on my iPhone. I believe this is exactly what the developers of the app really want to encourage.
After time went on though, I became complacent – recording daily mundane activities. At times, I even got annoyed that I had to get out my phone to record something insignificant. In fact, I spent many days doing laundry for hours on end and scrubbing bathrooms until they glistened.
That’s reality and that’s the beauty of it too. There are days that will not have a single fascinating, thrilling, capture worthy moment. It’s everyday life, but the moments you do capture are memories you may have forgotten about otherwise.
You don’t need to be a film major either to use this app. It’s so simple and does most of the work for you. Your only job is to simply record a video of whatever you’d like each day. Don’t think you can skip a day either.. (it happens), but you cannot substitute your footage from yesterday for today – so try really hard not to forget! Whether your documenting a month long road trip with friends or your puppy growing up, the memories will be cherished forever and you’ll be so glad you caught it on film!
And in case you’re curious. Here’s my year condensed into six minutes: http://vimeo.com/94123579.
(Side note: I was living and working in French Polynesia at the time so the setting was pretty ideal and my life is not always this glamorous!)
