Professor has taken 'selfie' every day for 30 years

BOSTON - Long before they were called selfies, Karl Baden snapped a simple black and white photo of himself. Then he repeated it, every day, for the next three decades.

Baden's "Every Day" project officially turned 30 on Thursday and he said he has no intention of stopping. The stark contemplation on mortality and aging has prompted some to dub the Boston College professor the unwitting "father of the selfie".

The 64-year-old Cambridge resident grumbles at comparisons to the pouty face, self-congratulatory portraits that fill Instagram and Facebook. But he recognizes the ubiquity of the "selfie" - a word that didn't become widespread until this decade - has helped raise the profile of the project, which has been exhibited in art galleries in Boston, New York and elsewhere.

"If it wasn't for the selfie craze, I'd probably be slogging along in anonymity as usual," Baden said. "Which is sort of what I had expected."

What makes the project work is that it reflects a number of universal themes, from death to man's obsession with immortalizing himself in some way, said Howard Yezerski, a Boston gallery owner who has exhibited the project on two occasions.

"It's both personal and universal at the same time," he said. "He's recording a life, or at least one aspect of it that we can all relate to because we're all in same boat. We're all going to die."

Baden quietly launched his project on Feb 23, 1987, the day after Andy Warhol died and nearly two decades before Facebook emerged. He tries to remain faithful to that first image, posing with the same neutral facial expression and using the same 35 mm camera, tripod, backdrop and lighting.

"The act itself is like brushing your teeth," he said.

Baden has taken other pains to maintain the same aesthetic. He has consciously not grown a beard or mustache, and his hair remains simply styled.

"I have to turn all these variables into constants so that I'm not distracting from the aging process," Baden said.

Besides mortality, Baden said the project touches on the notions of obsession, incremental change and perfection.

"As much as I try to make every picture the same, I fail every day," he said. "There's always something that's a little different, aside from the aging process."

Selfies of Karl Baden taken on Feb 23, 1987 and Feb 21 this year.Karl Baden Via AP