Lost and Found Photos

Mim finds a photo of her father

Mim (my wife's grandmother) told me this story before I ever started officially collecting stories about lost-and-found photographs. I recorded the story. I recorded many of her stories. Listen to her tell me about finding a photograph in her childhood home.

Lost at the Guggenheim in Bilbao

To whom it may concern
 
On the 12/09/09   at 14:30 we visited the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.
 We parked the car on Barreinkua kalle Street very near to the museum.

 It was a Citroen C-4 Piccaso.

When we came back at 17:10 we found that some body broke to the car. A lot of things were stolen.  Among those things was also a camera case in this case were some memory cards. (SD CARDS) on those cards I have allot pictures from our trip in Spain. I am asking for your help to get those pictures back, all that was stolen I can buy new thing, but for those pictures I need your help.  Please send this letter to every body you know I am sure that some one is possessing those cards with the pictures.

 
You can contact me by mail wintraub@gmail.com
 

Maplewood, NJ (part 3) / "The Unsafe Safe"

I thought I had posted this.  The New York Times New Jersey blog posted THIS story about lost photo call made to lostandfoundphotos.org. I reposted the audio below.

Link tags

I think I figured out a way to get my Typelist bookmarks into Delicious.

Lost SD cards from trip to Ireland

Here is another story called in a few days ago. Lost SD memory cards from a trip to Ireland. Listen.

Maplewood, New Jersey (part 2)

I received this call today.  The call goes with the story in the previous post that featured an email from Brandy about lost photographs in Maplewood, NJ. Listen.

Everything gone in Maplewood, New Jersey

I received this email a few days ago.  More on this (possible recovery, human interest newspaper story) later. I just wanted to post the entire message. 

"On July 7, 2009 my home in Maplewood, NJ was robbed. They took a fire safe which contained nothing of monetary value, but what it did contain was every single negative I have ever shot in my life. It also contained my wedding negatives, negatives of my daughter's first two years of life and even her sonogram pictures from the womb, 2 small photo albums with baby pictures of me and my husband, a black 8x10 portfolio of my photography, two cassette tapes of me singing with my now deceased grandmother when I was a baby and many other very precious photos and documents. It basically contained every material thing that is meaningful to me, and as an artist, I am devastated by the loss of my entire body of work. I feel like my heart and soul have been taken from me. I am trying anything, and praying for a miracle that someone will find some or all of the contents, as I assume the thieves tossed them as soon as they opened the safe and realized it was nothing of value.

Here is a listing of what was taken and I hope can be found:

6 - yellow/orange and black Kodak boxes sized 10”x12”x1” containingphotos and photographic negatives
2 - small photo albums containing baby pictures
1 - 8”x10” black photo album/portfolio with photos
Several large manilla envelopes containing letters, photos and
sentimental documents
2 – cassette tapes of my deceased grandmother and me singing when I was a baby
20-30 CD’s containing digital photos
2 – camcorder tapes
1- SD card containing pictures of my child’s recent birthday

I am offering a reward the return or for any information leading to the return of any or all of these items. If anyone has information please email returnreward7709@gmail.com.

A million thanks in advance."

A camera lost in St. Augustine

"We just lost our camera in Saint Augustine in Florida. Our camera has all our photos from Disney World. We are really sad. If you found it please email me and a reward is offered. The camera is sony and was inside a black soft case. The last photos were of the Cathedral of Saint Augustine."

Original comment HERE.

Wired Magazine Blog / Photobooth photo of my son and I

So awhile back (2007) a writer (Christine Finn) on Wired Magazine wrote about Is This You.  Finn linked to a Youtube video that featured lost-and-found passport photos.  I clicked on the link to the video. . . the very first image was a photobooth photo of my son and I.  The photobooth photo that I've had on this blog since I launched it.  I emailed the Youtube member and asked how the photo had ended up in the collection. I got no response.  I took a screen shot in case the video or link dissapeared.  It did. Here is my screenshot below. 

Lost camera in Milan

See original comment HERE
"I lost my camera with all its pictures from our vacation at the security checkpoint prior to entering through the checkpoint itself at the Milan Malpensa Airport, 21010 on June 11th, 2007 waiting for flight Flt. # 717 from Milan to Philadelphia. I lost my Canon Power Shot SD900 Digital Elph. I believe the Serial # is (21)3127117192. If you find it, please notify me.It has approx 790 pictures of our stay in Lyon Burgundy, Tuscany, Piedmont, Sienna, and Milan Our hotel name Hotel De la ville is pictured as the last place we stayed. The memory card is a 2Gb SD Sandisk. Iam the guy with barely any hair and I took lots of photos of food. I will give a generous reward if found just for the pictures.  You can keep the camera as part of the reward."

Lost camera in Thailand

See the original comment HERE
"Black Samsung (700 I think)... June 7th Fullmoon Party, Haad Rin, Kho Panghan, Thailand. As above, would be very very happy to get the photos back." 

Women and Cameras

So I've put together a very small collection of snapshots featuring women and cameras.  I think it would make a great blog or journal (essays, theory stuff grad students torture themselves and others with, and good, old fashioned storytelling).   I sent this snapshot to a graphic designer friend. She made these test covers. 

 

Thanks Rochelle. 

Lost Disney Photographs

Here is another lost camera post. Memory cards. I need to set up a better place (instead of the comment section) for people to post lost camera alerts. I think I've written that exact sentence somewhere here on this site (before).

"I lost my black Nikon Coolpix S560 camera contains a 4GB SD card in green color case, it is brand new i just brought before my trip to Las Angels, SanDiego and Las Vegas. Camera has lot of my son's pictures at Disney and Zoo...I lost camera on my first day of Vegas trip...it has lot of pictures of mickey and Disney of my sons first time...i don't think , i can go to Disney in near future... I would appreciate it if the person who found it would return it to me. Thank You"

Jill Epstein's Found Photos

Jill Epstein's Found photos. From Epstein: " My work mostly deals with "fake documentaries" where I give found photos to people and ask them to tell the story in the photo as if it's their own." I wonder if we are always doing this. . . look at our own photographs, and making up stories. I write about this. Watch this. Go to Youtube to see it BIG. 

Delicious Bookmarks

I'm currently adding the 200+ bookmarks from the left side of the page to Delicious bookmarks.

Awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Awkwardfamilyphotos.com, created recently (the archive goes back to April 2009), is very funny.   They take submitted family photos (awkward family photos, you know the kind) and post the photos on the blog.  I haven't looked close enough to figure out if these are lost-and-found photographs or people submitting their own photographs.

 There are two things I want to point out.  1.  Awkwardfamilyphotos offers a detailed DMCA agreement.  They write: "AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com respects the intellectual property of others and expect the users of our Website to do the same."  And #2. They do not accept the following:
"***Any comments that are offensive to the point of being viciously personal, racist, homophobic, exceedingly profane, violent or too graphic in nature won't be posted. We want to keep this site a friendly place to be awkward. Thanks!***"

This is unique. More on this later.  I think I write "more on this later too often."  But I will say these photos need NO comments.
 

Lost-and-found slides on Flickr

found slide, originally uploaded by captain byrne.

I came across this collection by Flickr user captain byrne. Wonderful collection.

Lost camera in Las Vegas Rum Jungle

Read about the lost camera in the comment section HERE.
"Hello, I lost a cannon SD630 in Rum Jungle Restaurant and night club in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas May 2nd.  If anyone has found it , please email me the pictures, I would really be ever so thankful and appreciative. Thankyou!!!"

Foundphotos.net

Paper photos. Digital photos.  Hard drive diving instead of dumpster diving. Whenever I look at foundphotos.net I always leave thinking digital photos are every bit as interesting as paper images.  Or that's not really what I want to say.  This collection of photographs that Foundphotos.net assembles are random and beautiful. Or the assemblage of these photos from file sharing programs (juxtaposed) create a wonderful exhibit that I always enjoy.  Or something like that.  

Foundphotos.net writes: "while searching for mp3's using a filesharing program. After downloading a folder of mp3's, I came across a folder named 'pictures' inside of the album folder, and found a handful of digital camera photos. This made me wonder what else was out there, what people are publicly sharing - after a few quick keyword searches I came across thousands of them publicly shared." 

Review of the Robert E. Jackson snapshot show

Robert E. Jackson's collection is / was an amazing exhibit and book. Here is a review (Paul Richard, Taken in a Flash, but Taken in More Slowly) for the National Gallery show.  Richard asks quite a few questions. . . I especially like this quote:

"This culled and curious show engrosses. The more you see its snapshots, the more you make your peace with the elusive, compound ghost who brought us these pictures: It isn't just one being, it's everyone who's ever stopped to snap a picture, and all the lessons taught by the movies and Life magazine. It's the collector and the curator and all of us together, all of us at once."

Lost-and-found photos from tornado

Family finds photo lost during tornado
"Guffey scanned the photo on her computer, printed it on a flyer and took it to the Gassville area. When no one recognized the photo, she sent copies of the photo to several newspapers in an attempt to return it to the family."

What could we do with Twitter?

Lost-and-found photos on Twitter. Maybe. I'm trying (and trying) to use it on my photosdie.com website. Photos die, unless we talk about them.  I did update or (tweated?) a link to the this new (I think it is a new site. I really hope it is. Because before I got sent an email alerting me by the creator to this site, I'd never seen it before. I'd like to think that I've got a fair selection of sites over there on teh left side of this site) site.  American Family X.  I'll be writing some more about this soon. 

Whose father was he? & lost-and-found in the digital world

Did you see the series of articles (by Errol Morris) about the photo of three children found on a dead (Civil War) solider?  Read it. And then read the short piece a week ago in the New York Times last week (Lost in the Real World, Found via Cyberspace).   The practice of searching for the owners of lost photos. . . Then and now.   More on this later.  I'd like a copy of that Philadelphia Inquirer article (Oct. 19, 1863).  Human interest vs. the marvels of technology (and social networks).

From Whose Father Was He? (part 0ne)
"Because there was no way of printing photographs in a newspaper, Bourns knew that he might need dozens if not hundreds of cartes de visite to put the image of the three children before the eyes of someone who knew them.

But the story had to be circulated as well, so the photographs were supplemented by a series of newspaper articles, the most prominent of which appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Oct. 19, 1863, a little over three months following the discovery of the ambrotype. It appeared under the heading, 'Whose Father Was He?'"

------
from: Lost in the Real World, Found via Cyberspace
"Ms. Surman, who lives in northern Scotland, did not give up. There were 600 pictures on the camera’s memory card, including some from a wedding and a couple’s European travels. Ms. Surman posted several of them on the Internet and, in the next few months, organized a group of amateur detectives who traced clues in the photos, leading them back to the camera’s stunned and delighted owner."

Lost in Dublin?

See original posted comment HERE.
On February 25th, i lost my Black Sony Camera, which was attached and inside of my pink magnetic case between the CDG airport, Terminal 1, gate 11-12 or even on my flight EI 521 to Dublin (1020am-1105am) between seats 10A-C & 8A-C. If you have found it please please can you return it to me. Or even so, please do the right thing and send me my memory stick that contains all my pictures from my first time in Europe. I would really appreciate it.

Lost Christmas camera in San Miguel

This comment was left under this post.
"Lost 1  "Canon PowerShot SD880IS 10MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver)
My Christmas present from my husband.  It has Christmas pictures of the first Christmas spent with our youngest son and his family.  Also it is our vacation to Guanujuato and San Miguel in Mexico.  I think I left it on a table in the jardin in San Miguel. Thanks in advance"

Women with cameras / eBay

I just made my payment for this snapshot I purchased from an eBay dealer.

Lost baby album call / Memories of my father

I received this story a few weeks ago. For some reason I did not see it in the inbox (I love Skype. I don't love Skype).   I'll be posting it with the other stories on the left side of the screen soon. 

eBay: Lost? Already downloaded? Forgotten?

This message was posted in the comment section of a post: "Bought an Olympus camera off of ebay. Pics on sd type card lead me to believe it was lost or stolen prior to being sold. Please identify camera type and or pics on card. would love to send this card home to the owner.I'm betting shes missing it.please contact me @ itsherjeep@aol.com"

Here is a call someone made about buying a camera on eBay and finding photos on the card.

There is nothing mundane about snapshots

There is nothing mundane about snapshots. Even the snapshots people think are mundane.  How could  a visual object that exists in so many different forms and contexts that sparks so many stories, activities, and perceptions about art, self, family, memory, time, etc be mundane?

I almost lost my camera.

 
 I went out with my kids to Marblehead lighthouse this afternoon.  I took a bunch of photos on a little snapshot camera.  When I went to download the photographs this evening, I could not find the camera. I did the usual turn over the house. . . flashlight under the car seat. Nothing. I then remembered right before we left the lighthouse that I slipped and fell.  So at about 9:00, I drove out to the lighthouse with a flashlight.  It was there. Right where I slipped. Frozen to the ground. Still works. Everything is fine.  As many say when they lose a camera:I don't care about the camera. . . I just want the photos.  Here is one of the photos that I thought of when I didn't think I'd find the camera. There they are. . . walking up to the lighthouse in the snow.  I also posted this entry on my podcast Photosdie.com.