Lost and Found Photos

Melanie Willhide's Work

When I first looked at Melanie Willhide's work in Blindspot magazine I thought she was using lost-and-found photographs. . . but she is not.  Or she is. . . She is refering to the idea of the lost-and-found image.  Go to Willhide's site to read about her work.  Look closely at the images that appear just beyond visual reach. I also must paste the quote from Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost here:
“Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing” 
I think I will just start posting that quote everywhere.

Here is an excerpt from Willhide's Artist Statement for  Sleeping Beauties (THE BOX UNDER THE BED)

"Most of these sweet mementoes end up in flea market shoeboxes, forgotten.  But it is these small pictures -- risque pinups, the racy wartime snapshots, and the photos of wives, lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends -- provide both inspiration and source to THE BOX UNDER THE BED." 

In BOX, the images appear to be artifacts, yet they are entirely artificial. . ."

Lost at Walmart

This was posted in the comment section of a post. 

"LOST MY DK BROWN SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA(ICON BLACK CASE) AT THE WALMART ON CHAPMAN HIGHWAY IN KNOXVILLE, TN.  WOULD LOVE TO HAVE CAMERA, MEMORY CARD AND CASE BACK IF RETURNED BUT WILL SETTLE FOR MEMORY CARD.  IF ALL THREE ARE RETURNED-$50.00 REWARD(NEGOTIABLE)-NO QUESTIONS ASKED.  REALIZED I HAD LOST IT FROM 11/19/08-11/21/08.  I RESCUE ANIMALS AND MY MOST CURRENT SHOTS ARE ON THAT MEMORY CARD/MY DAUGHTER PLAYING SOCCER AND MY HUSBAND LAYING LAMINATE FLOORING. PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT TNRESCUE4@YAHOO.COM"    

Lost wedding and honeymoon photos in Munich

Lost silver Sony Cybershot camera in taxi in Munich on November 6th at 10:30 going from Augustiner Kellar to Hofbraeuhaus. The camera contained the only copies of my wedding and honeymoon photos. I am absolutely devastated by its loss.
Please return the memory card (you can keep the damn camera!!!) and receive a serious reward, worth much more than the camera. Please have a heart and do the right thing.

Wir haben eine silberne Sony Cybershot Digitalkamera im Taxi vor dem Hofbraeuhaus am 06.11.2008 gegen 22:30 Uhr verloren. Auf der Kamera sind unsere Hochzeits- und Flitterwochenfotos, die einfach
unersaetzlich fuer uns sind. Es sind unsere einzigen Exemplare und wir waeren am Boden zerstoert, wenn sie fuer immer verloren waeren! Es ist wirklich sehr wichtig, dass wir die Kamera wieder bekommen. Eine betraechtliche Belohnung gibt es auch! Bitte kontaktiert uns ueber lostcamerainmuenchen@gmail.com, wenn Ihr uns helfen koennt oder irgendwelche darueber Informationen habt.
Email: lostcamerainmuenchen@gmail.com

Lost Camera: Toronto or Heathrow

See original comment HERE.
"I lost camera (kodak digital)with 5 sd cards, October 2008 at Toronto or Heathrow airport. Family funeral and Egypt Holiday pics plus more.
So sad.Only really want the pics. Thanks..."

El Paso: Lost & Found

Article from Wallstreet Journal.

Greece: Lost Camera

This call for the return of a camera was posted in the comment section of this post.

I Lost my black Sony digital camera at Koufonissi Island in Greece with personal photos in August 2008. Please if you have found it I want only the memory stick. Thank you! 

Alex Horstmann's Digg Experiment

Read about Alex Horstmann's Digg Experiment to reunite someone with a lost memory card HERE.

Abandoned Photo Museum

EC "Ted" Adams Abandoned Photo Museum features lost-and-found photographs from Philadelphia.   Adams writes in the introduction to the museum: "The photos in the following gallery were all found on the sidewalk, mostly in Philadelphia, either as entire discarded "collections" that people had put out on garbage day, or as individual pictures that had perhaps fallen out of their owners' pockets - or that the garbage collectors had left behind."       

Primelia & Sons: Vintage Photograph

Primelia & Sons, vintage photograph dealers with a store front on eBay, have a page of definitions of different terms that may be of interest to photographers, photo collectors, and those of you looking though boxes of old photographs in your own house.  Go HERE to see their "Photo Facts page. 

Lost Home Movies in Land Cruiser

I am searching for the proverbial "needle in a haystack". This is what I know of the story....My husband's father owned a Land Cruiser in Colorado. When their dad passed away, they sold off a bunch of things, to make ends meet, and the Land Cruiser was one of them. Nobody bothered to look in it and see if everything was taken out, it just went as is. (One of the brothers had the vehicle, and sold it, one of the other brothers knew what was in it) Anyway, in the Land Cruiser was a box of old 8mm home movies, and possibly some still pictures. I would appreciate it anyone has any info (tips or ideas) on how to find these pictures...it would surely be a miracle if we could get them as we now have only one 3 minute piece of home movie of their dad, and mom would really appreciate it too.

Lost Camera in Las Vegas

Lost my digital camera in las Vegas in 11th september 2008. It is a Canon IXUS 960, and I lost in a taxi between Treasure Island Hotel and Stratosphere. Reward will be given. We only would like to recover our photos. There are photos of our honey moon in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon. Thank you very much.

Lost Camera, Fenway Park

"I lost my silver Nikon digital camera on the night of September 13, 2008 somewhere in or near Fenway Park after the Red Sox Game.  There are photos of ourselves, pets, and our entire Boston vacation on the memory card.  I am absolutely heartbroken to have lost all these photos from such a special weekend.  All I care about is the memory card and/or the photos that were on it." 

People have been posting stories of lost cameras in the comments section on my Craiglist entry HERE. Scroll down and you can read the stories.  While there are many options for alerting the public about losing a camera, feel free to email me your story and I'll post it.  Because this is part of a research project, I won't put your email address on the post.  Let's see how many people send stories.  I may set up a separate page for these stories.  There is a great website www.ifoundyourcamera.net that tries to reunite losers with finders.

Lost Camera Story

People have been posting stories of lost cameras in the comments section on my Craiglist entry HERE. Scroll down and you can read the stories.  While there are many options for alerting the public about losing a camera, feel free to email me your story and I'll post it.  Because this is part of a research project, I won't put your email address on the post.  Let's see how many people send stories.  I may set up a separate page for these stories.  There is a great website www.ifoundyourcamera.net that tries to reunite losers with finders.

LOST CAMERA STORY
Hello,
I was traveling on a Greyhound bus between August 9th - 10th of 2008.
I'm sure its ended up at a pawn shop by now but I have hope.
Some of the pics on the memory card are my trip to California at San Pedro, a boat ride to the Queen Mary, and pictures downtown Long Beach,Ca.
As a reward:
WHOEVER FINDS OR HAS THE CAMERA, YOU CAN KEEP THE CAMERA, I JUST WANT THE PICTURES.
The pictures are on a memory card.
AGAIN: I just want the pictures..you can keep the camera.
Thank you.

Here is a pic of my lost camera:

Precious photos lost, found and returned to sender

Precious photos lost, found and returned to sender
Article from the Miami Herald. Read it HERE. Quote below from article.

"The light blue photo album filled with irreplaceable black-and-white memories of a 1930s childhood spent in Coral Gables was strewn on the floor of a Postal Service sorting facility in Pembroke Pines.

No return address. No hint of its destination. Puzzled postal clerks only had pictures and captions as clues." 

Superbomba

, originally uploaded by superbomba.

Flickr user Superbomba has a large collection of found photographs. Click on the link below the photograph (superbomba) to see more.

SquareAmerica: On the Beauty of Absence

SquareAmerica features many online exhibits.  See one of the most recent exhibits titled, On the Beauty of Absence.  It features images of album pages where photographs no longer reside.  SquareAmerica writes: "A Small show of accidental abstractions: 13 pages from an album I recently picked up in which almost all of the photos had either fallen out or been removed."

Phoundfotographs: The Photographer's Shadow

Phoundfotographs is featuring an online exhibit titled, The Photographer's Shadow.  Photo below from exhibit. I think this is my favorite one. See the man in the background taking a photo?

Barbara Levine: Remember Me / Memory Snapshots

Barbara Levine's Remember Me / Memory Snapshots exhibit features photographs of people with personal photographs. Photo in a photo. 
 

Meggan Gould: Verso

Verso by Meggan Gould examines the reverse side of family and anonymous found photographs.  Gould writes: "Hints of text, stamped numbers, tape and glue marks, all relics of a pre-pixel age, invite the viewer to construct their own photographic image on an imagined reverse side. "  Image below from series. Gould also wrote about this project on her blog HERE.

WWII bag found

A Flickr member posted a link to this video on a message board. I can not find that message now. Just wanted to give credit. . . but I can't find that message now. Ahhh.

Floods sweeping away homes

HERE is a story from MSNBC.  The Fromm family lost their home to the flood waters.  Here is a quote from the story.  There are many more stories like this. . .

“Everything that we have is gone,” Tim Fromm told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer Wednesday. “You can replace furniture and TVs and everything else. [But] it’s the memories. We have no pictures of our younger daughters anymore. We had binders and binders and books of all the kids growing up.”

Billy Parrott's Found photographs in pocket watches

Billy Parrot has a number of found photo projects at BillyParrott.com.  See his use of found photographs in pocket watches HERE.

Alexander Honory & Joachim Schmid

THIS is another site (Galeria FF) I found while looking for Honory's "The lost pictures."  There is an essay on the site by Lech Lechowicz: "Collections which restore usefulness to found photography" 

Lechowicz writes: "For those artists the image contained in found photographs is significant, but only as a part of often complicated image structures and contents, like photomontage. In both cases what is less important, and sometimes simply insignificant, is the private, "personal" content, connected with each picture's past. This private, "personal" content is the result of the intention of the person who took the photograph and the intention of the person to whom it belonged. It is the owner of photographs who gives them their opulent content, rather unattainable for other people." 

Things magazine - Because you're worth it

I found THIS small exhibit today ("Because you're worth it") while looking for Alexander Honory's The Lost Pictures (which I read about in Martin Parr's The Photobook: a history, volume 2) It's from Things Magazine.  An interesting site.  Photo below from "Because you're worth it." 

tinywindows: Blog

Jeanne Storck's tinywindows is a wonderful source for information and critical writing about "found" photographs.  Check out THIS post.  Storck writes: "We tend to think of found photos as existing solely in the physical world, pieces of paper from the past covered with chemical emulsion and unknown faces, but the Internet opens up a whole new universe of vernacular photography where the images are less tangible, more ephemeral and free from the bonds of ownership. It’s a vast community-owned pool of images."  Yes. YES. Go read tinywindows. You'll be glad you did.  If I can't remember how I found some interesting photography site, there is a good chance I found it at tinywindows.

TheFoundBin.com

TheFoundBin.com features a category titled: All Lost and Found Media.  Go HERE to see posts.  Here is a short excerpt from a post:

"the contents of the unit may have been auctioned off, a big identifier would be about 200 1:18 scale model cars. what i am trying to locate is family photos, among them would be the only prints of my and my 2 daughters baby and childhood pictures"

Coming Home: Dateline story

Dateline featured THIS story last week.  Vietnam War: American soldier picks up a photograph of a little girl from the pocket of the Vietnam soldier he shot and killed.  Coming Home tells the story of that photograph. They have the entire transcript on their website.  Here is a quote from the transcript.

"I seen this picture sticking out partially out. It looked like (closes eyes) the face of a little girl with some long hair or something. And I pulled it out and it was real tiny. And it was a picture of a soldier and a little girl. I can remember holding the photo and actually squatting and getting close to the soldier and actually looking in his face and looking at the photo, and looking at his face.

Here was the man he had just killed. But who was that little girl? His daughter?

They seemed so serious. So, sad, somehow. Like the picture was taken just before they said goodbye. Before her father went off to war."

Stolen Wallet Story

My dissertation adviser sent me the article above last year.  You can read about the missing wallet HERE.  "There was no money in the wallet, but it contained Val's Navy ID, a copy of his Augusta birth certificate and more than a dozen photos."

Found Meat Photographs in Meatpaper Magazine

Meatpaper #2(a magazine about meat) contains an article about found photographs featuring meat titled: Conspicuous Consumption: A Portfolio of found meat photography.  Author Abner Nolan writes: "I was interested in describing the evolution of the meat-centered meal, from a visit to the butcher to preparation and consumption."

Women & Cameras

I have purchased a few more photographs off of eBay featuring women and cameras.  I've bid on a number of auctions, but I've lost to other bidders.  There are lots of people who probably collect these kinds of images.  Here are a few of the photographs I've won.  Also, the new banner above features one of the photographs I purchased on eBay.