“I began this project 25 years ago,” writes photographer Zed Nelson. “The wife of a friend was nine months pregnant, and I had an idea, based on time-lapse photography, to photograph them with their baby soon after the birth, and then every year, from then on, forever.
I planned the shoots in a formal, almost scientific way. Each year, on the same date, against the same backdrop, under the same lighting, I would photograph the same family. This way there are no distractions, only the miracle of growth and the changes of time and aging.”
— Zed Nelson, Photographer


According to Nelson, “the project is planned to continue until I cease to exist, or until the family die, or refuse to continue.”
Next up: Five Guys, One Cockroach: The Copco Lake Five Project
Also in the series Magic vs. the Bony Guy: Six Lifespan Projects That Speak to Us All:
- Because I Make Up the Rules: a Life and a Death in Polaroids
- A Desperate Swipe at Immortality: Marc Tasman’s 10-Year Polaroid Self-Portrait Project
- This is the Power of Time: Father and Son Across Three Decades
- From Friendly Desperation: Nicholas Nixon, the Brown Sisters, and a Four-Decade Appointment