I started recording and putting together videos during my Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Taiwan (2014–2015). This was inspired by Cesar Kuriyama’s “One Second Every Day” project, the subject of a TED talk I watched back in college.
For those unfamiliar with Kuriyama’s work, here’s a quick summary: Kuriyama recorded one second of video every day for a year, which he then compiled into a 365-second clip. The clip went viral, and he’s since continued to record these videos—not because they help him remember his day-to-day life (their original purpose), but because they offer perspective on his life.
Unlike Kuriyama, I put together a simple video montage highlighting memorable moments from the year—whatever I had had the thought to capture on my camera at the time, rather than recording a single second per day. (I’ve tried the daily video approach before but found that I did not want to limit myself to choosing a single video per day.)
In the end, I loved the final product; the video felt like a recap and highlight reel of my Fulbright experience, a period of time I so treasured.
But why stop there? As Kuriyama points out, there are so many incredible moments in your life. I loved the idea of capturing slices of them to create a video scrapbook of sorts—one that I could look back on later in life to remember what might otherwise be forgotten.
While the first video spanned both 2014 and 2015, I decided that beginning with 2016, each calendar year deserved its own video. Here they are below, beginning with the most recent.
Six Years (& Counting)