To this end, he has refrained from changing his hairstyle, growing facial hair, or otherwise altering his looks beyond the natural process of aging. Every few months, Baden will develop film from the project, append a date to each frame, and make a proof of the entire roll, which is then added to a book of all the previous pictures. Reproduced on the end pages of this publication are two of the pages from this book. Sometimes the discrepancy is subtle, sometimes it is hilariously gross. Failure is a foregone conclusion.
Life gets in the way.
Mistakes are part of the project and part of the process. Many photographers have been the subject of their own work including Lee Freidlander, Jack Fulton, Francesca Woodman, and John Coplans among many others. Undoubtedly many more photographers have had notions to make a picture of themselves everyday, but few, if any, have matched the grand proportions that Baden has reached. Definitions aside, what is clear is that the universal struggle to understand the conflicts and contradictions of one's life is the core of Baden's work, and the results of that struggle can sometimes be as clear as the nose on your face and sometimes as dark as fear can get. Baden began using himself as subject while still a graduate student at the University of Illinois.