30 Years video - Harrogate dad's 'mesmerising' clips of each day of son's life goes viral once again

Ian McLeod, 66, an amateur photographer and Harrogate care assistant, started the ball rolling in 1991 by taking a photo every day for the first 21 years of his son Cory's life, then digitally sequencing them together in six-and-a-half minute, time lapse video clip.

The first picture of Cory was taken at Harrogate General Hospital, which is now a housing estate on Knaresborough Road.

By the end of the amateur project, Ian had taken 7,670 pictures of his son.

The cleverly-sequenced and stunningly soundtracked video he went on to create from those images contained pictures of Cory in his school uniform at Oatlands and St Aidan’s schools and in his football kit with the Killinghall Nomad and Pannal Ash Juniors.

Soon the video – called 21 Years - was attracting millions of views round the world on Youtube.

Eventually, both father and son were in demand to appear on national TV and radio - which fuelled interest further.

Ian said: “After the initial rush of interest, myself and Cory thought that would be it, then, out of the blue, the BBC got in touch, then the Daily Mail.

"It was quite amazing and a very pleasant surprise.”

Now it’s happening all over again after the now 31-year-old Cory continued the routine by taking a selfie every day even when he moved to university from Harrogate and travelled around the world.

Called 30 Years, the newly-expanded video runs to eight minutes and includes more than 11,000 pictures, one from each day of his life.

“To me, it's a very unique piece of art,” said Cory.

Early coverage in the Harrogate Advertiser and Yorkshire Post has been followed by stories in the Daily Mirror and the BBC.

As a result, the number of hits have been racking up again – with the new version of the video hailed as "mesmerising”.

Cory is now planning a book about the whole affair called, what else, 30 Years: A Life Lived Every Day.