Lost and Found Photos

Lost & Found Project: Japan

You can order the posters seen in this image from the Lost & Found Project site.

Lost & Found Project is a beautiful site and project salvaging photos lost and damaged in the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan.  Take some time reading about the project on the site.  Here is a little piece from the introduction:

"We all take photographs. A few special ones are cherished, and the rest forgotten. We take pictures when we are having fun, when we want immortalize a moment shared with another person. The photographs you see here were also taken under those circumstances. The depth of emotion might vary from snap to snap, but each one captures a point in time that somebody wanted to keep.

What are we supposed to feel and think when we look at these pictures?
Should we be happy that they were found at all, or sad that they will never be returned to their owners? Or should we simply mourn for the dead? The more I struggle to find answers, the more missing pieces I seem to find."

Nevada Vietnam War Memorial call for photos

The VVMF is looking for photos to include with in the Nevada Vietnam War Memorial.  Read about it HERE.

Quote from article: "But 63 of the Nevada Vietnam War casualties listed on The Wall, remain without photos.The VVMF has established the National Call for Photos, a movement to collect photos for each of the service-members inscribed on The Wall.

Lost Panasonic camera returned to girl

HERE is an interesting story about a lost camera (and photos) returned to owner.

From the article (Fairfield City Champion):

"Mr Biro recorded a short video with the company promoting the search, and encouraging people to use social networking websites to identify the owners by the photos on the camera.

For privacy reasons, they said, they wouldn't publish any images of people on the camera's memory card.

But a spokesman for the camera company confirmed that the camera had been handed back to its owner, 12-year-old Emma Griffin, of Avoca Beach on the central coast, after inquiries through the houseboat company pictured in the last of the photos rather than the publicity campaign."

 

Found Photos on Youtube: Quintard, Gillet and Jordan x2

This comment was written under the Found Photos Quintard, Gillet and Jordan post. I reposted the story below and the comment under the post that was recently made.

"I believe I am related to the Jordan end of things. My Jordan relatives lived in Germantown, PA. So sad that these pics were found in the garbage. I really appreciate that you rescued them and have placed them on line. Feel free to contact me. Eblev@nc.rr.com Thank you Elizabeth JORDAN Blevins"

 

Making a book of snapshots

I've slowly been amassing photos of women holding cameras.  I'm usually interested in photos that do not look like they would go in a snapshot book. What does this mean? I'll be writing more about this.

Lost and Found on Facebook

There are a number of stories about the use of Facebook to reunite photos with people. HERE is an article from The New York Times (April).  There is another great story right now playing on The BBC that I've heard twice, but can't find online.

Quote from article:

"Like hundreds of others finding keepsakes that fell from the sky and posting photographs of them on a Facebook lost and found, the woman included her e-mail address, and Ms. Washburn wrote immediately: “That man is my granddaddy. It would mean a lot to me to have that picture.”

 

 

Found Photo's Quintard, Gillet and Jordan

The Joplin Tornado: Lost Photos Site

From Carthage woman creates lost photos website

"Then she heard a woman on the radio saying she had found photos from Joplin in her yard and didn’t know what to do with them.

“I knew instantly that would be a good fit for me,” she said. “I’m just an individual that has a little experience with photos, with memories. That’s what I do for a living. That was the way that I can help.”

Lost and found in South Yarmouth

Lost-and-found photos from the Cape Cod Times. Read it HERE.  Quote below:

"The Thomas family landed on the front page of Saturday's Cape Cod Times after a man discovered a pile of their photos in the gutter along Route 28.

Less than 24 hours later, Patti Thomas called to claim them.

"I was devastated," Thomas said of her state of mind after losing the photos. "I didn't dare tell my older sister."

What's That Picture?

Look at THIS site. What's that Picture? is creating a timeline out of Flickr vintage photos. Maureen Taylor's email newsletter introduced me to this site.

Lost and Found Photos in Japan

Read the full article HERE.

"Photos found in the ruins of Japan's tsunami-ravaged towns are perhaps one of the most poignant reminders of all the lives lost following the March 11 disaster, and on March 24 the government decided that they should be saved."

Quote from D.J. Waldie / Close to Home

"We're like snapshots.  What we hunger for its remembrance.  Found snapshots are trivial, but the're bodies, too, just like you and me, and they have nowhere else to go but into someone's hands or into the furnace.  You are seeing. They are seen.  That's all the faith they need.  Just look.  You were lost, but now your snapshots have found you." D.J. Waldie from Facing the Facts (p. 16) Close to Home: An American Album.

Lost camera and photos from London & Bermuda

Here is a lost photos story posted today. 

"Still sad about losing all my beautiful photos of our 2 week holiday to London and Bermuda with our young family- for our 15th wedding anniversary, my husband's 40th, my youngest daughter's birthday and our mileston return after 5 years to Bermuda where we once lived... Many memories of our family and friends... Lost we believe after night flight on BA at Gatwick London in May 2009... It's a long shot but you never know!  If the memory card recovered please post here! Thanks."  See contact info HERE.

The Inevitable loss of data and the last printed photo by Kai Staats

If you are interested in digital photo (data) preservation, you may want to read Kai Staats are article: "The Inevitable loss of data and the last printed photo"  I especially like this phrase: Archiving the invisible.  Staats writes: "While some people have an innate sense of the virtual and are able to effectively visualize and manage their computer's storage, most cannot."   And another phrase "innate sense of the virtual" 

Photographer Unknown by Mike Wellins

There are a number of lost-and-found photo books.  I do have my favorites.  I found THIS book the other day.  Photographer Unknown by Mike Wellins.  It is (I believe) self-published.  More people with photo collections should do this.  This one is available through Lulu.com.  Check it out. 

From the description:

"A collection of found images whose photographer is unknown. Taken during the past century and gathered over the last twenty years from junk stores, yard sales and online auctions, Mike Wellins lends the amazing photos a new breath of life in this collection."

ifoundyourcamera.net's Birthday

Happy Birthday Ifoundyourcamera.net.  Great advice: from the most recent post (Feb 3) below:

"If you see a set of orphan photos from your city, contact a local reporter so we can work together to gain greater exposure and raise the chances of the photos being returned. Share our website through Facebook or Twitter and other social networking sites. Blog about us. Email the link to friends and family. The more people we have reading, the better we can increase our chances of success."

Hello France: www.photoanonyme.fr

I just saw this site (via looking at who linked to this site). A wonderful looking French lost-and-found photos site.  www.photoanonyme.fr   There looks to be quite a bit of writing.  I'm going to Google Translate or get a friend who speaks French to read this to me.  Great collection of links.  And I saw they put "Too hard to keep" in their collection.  Nice.  Hello France. 

Lost and Found Honeymoon Photographs

HERE is a story from CBS 8 in San Diego.  "A San Diego couple shot hundreds of pictures on their honeymoon, then lost their camera. But one year later, they were reunited with their precious pictures."

 

Digital Found Photos

Frits Gierstberg ask this in Christian Skrein Snapshots:

 "It is rather unlikely that we will find digital photo files on the flee market in fifty or a hundred years from now.  Or will we then find them on the World Wide Web?" (p. 11)

Answer: Both.  Old, abandoned computers with hard drives full of photos.  And the WWW where the some were placed by the owners. 

A Call for Rock 'n' Roll Photographs

Read the article HERE.  See quote from article below. . .

 

"And they've put out the call for any photos taken by kids with Brownie cameras who stashed them away somewhere and then forgot them.

Only one show remains with no photos found -- the Capitol Theater in Davenport. At the elegant Prom Ballroom in St. Paul, a 12-year-old boy took photos backstage of Holly and others, but none have surfaced of the concert itself. Garabedian and McCool are offering "a significant cash reward" for pictures from St. Paul and Davenport."

Lawyer finds owner of lost camera

Here is a story from a few days ago . . . Read about a lawyer "tracking" down an owner of a lost camera HERE.

David: Where will your photos go when you die?

This is part two of the faux documentary I created and presented at IVSA 2004.  Is David's response (and argument) authentic even though it is made-up?  I'm planning to interview David again about his response.  If you click on the DOCUMENTARY tab above, you will find a real short documentary I created when I returned a photo album (my Aunt purchased it at an auction) the owners in Tennesee.

 

I was thinking about this during the discussion of the authenticity of the Prospect Park film canister story.

Untitled from Todd Wemmer on Vimeo.

Memory card found after Tsumnami

While there is speculation about the Prospect Park Film Canister authenticity, you should go read this story from the Day after Christmas Tsumnami.  Man finds memory card in water soaked camera belonging to a couple on vacation who died in Tsumnami.  Here is the story:  Couple's final photos "an echo from the grave"

A small collection of human interest stories about lost-and-found photos

HERE is a very small collection of stories about lost-and-found photographs.  These stories are published everyday. Or that's what Google Alerts and LexisNexis tell me.

Flood Photo Rescue in Australia

Read the story HERE.

"BILOELA woman Jackie Kington has used her own pain as inspiration to try and help Theodore flood victims who have lost precious family photos.

Jackie feared a power surge which damaged her computer had lost her photos of her son Andrew and husband Wayne, who have died in recent years, but someone had copied them onto another hard drive."

One more thing: "Jackie has since bought an external hard drive to keep the photos safe."  This does not keep photos safe (in my humble opinion).  Hard drives fail.  At the very least, but two external drives to back up photos and keep the drives in two different locations.  A hard drive crash is like a house fire.

 

 

ABC News Picks up the Lost Prospect Park Film / Photos

ABC News picked up the story . . . Read it HERE.

Found photos in New York City blizzard

Lost and Found Photos Spark YouTube Search in the Village Voice by Myles Tanzer. An article about a man who found a roll of film in Prospect Park.  See Youtube video below by Todd Bieber (the man who found the photos).  Make sure you read the comments below the video questioning its authenticity.  If you visit the Documentary tab above you will see three different videos.  One is a recording of someone answering the question "Where do you think your photos will go when you die?"  The other two videos are very similar in format.  Photo slide show and someone talks about the photos.  One of these videos is titled The Photo Album. That is the a "true" story of a photo album my aunt purchased at an auction. I found the owners by doing a simple Google search.  The other one is titled: Where will your photos go when you die?  A faux documentary.  That contains recordings by people making up their feelings about lost-and-found photographs.  In the second part, a man (David) does not care to have his family photos back. . .he makes a compelling argument why he doesn't want the photos or even need the photos back.  Is this an authentic response? He is making up the response. . . but he makes an important point: Some people don't want their family photos back.  That's why they abandon them in the first place.   More on this later.  If Bieber's Youtube video got 88,000 hits, how many hits did this story get? It was on the New York Times website. . .

Have you seen these people? A lost-and-found memory card story

Read the story at the Hendon Times HERE.

"Peter Simpson, 43, from Teddington, found a discarded camera memory card in a south London gutter a year ago. . . .According to the dates recorded on the pictures the child would be nearly four years old now because the baby was born on March 1, 2007.

If you recognise the couple or the area in the photographs please contact Hendon Times"

Accidental Archive

I love it.  The Kitchen Sisters (rock stars) use "Accidental Archive" to describe their early  work (Lost and Found Sound).

The collective is only one click away

People can work and work (and work) at building something online.  If that something has tags or text (metadata) it becomes one with something else someone built somewhere else online. The collective is only one click away. Only one search engine query away.  The accidental archive.  The unconcious archive?