Career
Between March 31, 1979 and October 25, 1997, the day of his death, he took a single picture nearly every day with a Polaroid SX-70 camera. Livingston"s "Polaroid a Day" photographic diary started at Bard College and though some photos have gone missing from the collection, 6,697 Polaroids remain. By the next year, the pictures were hosted online and became a popular discovery of several online blogs.
He also worked as a cinematographer and editor of music videos for Music Television, as well as working on advertisements with Nike.
In 1979, Livingston received a Polaroid camera and after a few weeks noticed that he was taking about one photo a day, which subsequently evolved into the Polaroid a Day project Crawford cited the "everyman quality to the photographs" as part of their appeal, with the collection documenting everything from Livingston"s lunch that day to the discarded Kodak and Polaroid packaging in a bin to television screens showing presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton.
Because Livingston took only one picture and kept it regardless, the day-to-day often took precedence over more unusual subjects. His photographs in and out of hospital continued up until the day of his death.