Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures

Below is an excerpt of an interview I did with the Toronto Star in May 2009:

Preprost acts as liaison between loser and finder, no fees involved. The reward is solving the mystery, Whose Camera Is It Anyway? Blog readers often comment on photos, recognizing landmarks, pointing out clues.

So far, Preprost and his online do-gooders have connected 18 mislaid cameras with their relieved owners. These days, a forgotten digital camera means not 24 or 36 lost pictures but potentially hundreds stored on the memory card.

"The first three months of my daughter's life was on that camera," says Raechel McFarland of Fresno, California, who had left it in a rental car during a Florida vacation.

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Curious about the stories behind the lost pictures, what goes on behind the scenes, and the future of the blog?

Click here to listen to my interview with Julia Giacoboni of A Community Affair on Rowan Radio out of Rowan University.

Interview.

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Below is an excerpt of an interview I did with the Associated Press as it was published in newspapers across North America.

His site was inspired by a submission to PostSecret.com, where people submit secrets on the Internet via handmade post cards. In early February, one posted "secret" was from someone who found a camera at Lollapalooza and wanted to reunite it with its owner.

Preprost found it compelling that the person was using PostSecret to try to connect with someone and e-mailed site-founder Frank Warren, whom he'd interviewed for his college newspaper. By the end of the day, they'd started www.Ifoundyourcamera.net together.

Preprost runs the blog — a scroll through its submissions takes you to all corners of the globe — while Warren said he serves as his mentor.

"I've been through a lot of the things he's going through in terms of trying to create this community and listen to it and respect everybody's values and allow the community to grow in a self-purposing way," Warren said.

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Thank you:

To everyone who has submitted in lost photos that they have found; everyone who has emailed and shared their lost camera stories; and everyone who has passed this website along to their friends and have made it a place to frequent. It is because of your help that this project is a success. Thank you for your continued and overwhelming support!

We continue to look forward to your submissions and your stories, and hope that one day, if you have lost a camera, that we are able to help return your memories back to you.

All the best,

Matt and Frank

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