Like a real-life take on the film “Boyhood,” Hugo Cornellier grows from a 12-year-old boy into a 19-year-old young man in less than two minutes in a YouTube video he created. “I was taking selfies before it was mainstream,” he said in the video’s description.
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According to Cornellier, he took a selfie every day for seven years to create the video. He did a great job of framing and centering the photos so that there is minimal movement of his face — the expression never changes either — to better showcase the way he grows and changes through his teenage years.
People in his life flit by faster than you can see them, but there’s no denying puberty as he grows from a fresh-faced boy into a stubbled young man.
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Similarly, Richard Linklater‘s “Boyhood” was filmed over a span of nearly 12 years, capturing the true growth and development of its young star, Ellar Coltrane. Coltrane was six-years-old when filming began in 2002, and he was filmed every year through 2014. The film was released by IFC Films to wide critical acclaim in July 2014.
Of course, Cornellier wasn’t the originator of the “photo-a-day” phenomenon. There have been others who’ve picked up the camera to chronicle their lives, including a young girl who took a selfie a day from the ages of 14 through 19.
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Some parents have turned the camera outward to chronicle their kids’ lives, taking photos of them every day for years, with one going so far as to do it for the first 21 years of his son’s life. Even Homer Simpson got in on the act with a look back at his own boyhood, while a charity organization gained a lot of attention by using the popular format to bring attention to the plight of children in Syria.