One of my favorite all time web-based stories (I credit Bryan Alexander for introducing me to this) is I Found a Camera in the Woods. originally posted to a discussion board, it reveals exactly what the title says- including a series of photos on the found camera that sequentially play out a story in images, of… something that happened in the woods to the camera owner. The original site is long gone; i found a few relict copies.
I’ve always wanted a chance to try something like this… and then the real thing happens. I set up a wordpress.com site with the hope of finding the family that left their Casio digital camera, and a few hundred vacation photos, on the Go train in Toronto.
I uploaded about 20 pictures with key locations. Through some analysis of detail, location, I assembled a map of their trip from Chicago to Cleveland to Niagara Falls and then Toronto. I am fairly aure the family is from Germany, and that they dropped a son off to a college or university in Chicago before etting out in a rented RV for the rest of your trip.
The back story is my friends Giulia and GNA found it on their return from the unplugd conference. There was some speculation about how it might be best to test social media to locate the camera owners. Or if sites like http://www.ifoundyourcamera.net/ or http://www.camerafound.com/. Or maybe it is a job best suited in Facebook because “that’s where everyone is”
We’ll see, I am just curious to see if the camera can get back to the owners. I think we can find them in 2 weeks or less. I am curious if someone can find other details in the photos. All you need to do is find the owners, and have them contact me (see full details).
Ok, there is probably something creepy about me posting someone’s vacation photos online. I’m totally willing to remove them once we find the owners. I know if it were me, I most would want the fulls et of lost photos, even beyond the camera (which is replaceable) the photo memories are not.
Lastly, there is actually a rather simple way I can solve this, and I will put that plan into motion if the network fails, Can you guess what I can do to easily locate them? Why not do that right away?
I guess my curiosity to test social media trumps it all (plus it gave me a chance to poke around a wordpress.com hosted site)
Spread the word, help get this camera home- can we locate them before October 14?
http://wefoundyourcamera.wordpress.com/
