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Someone found your camera and they want you to have it back
By Daniela jamaica vacation home Flores
Associated Press
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Imagine you lost the camera that had those one-of-a-kind vacation photos, or images of a keepsake moment. Now imagine a stranger island of male vacation finding it: Would you feel happy, or somehow that your privacy was invaded, if that stranger put some of your images on the Web to track you down?
Power, reach of Internet
A new Web site, www.Ifoundyourcamera.net , aims to do exactly that: Using the power and reach of the Internet, it asks people who find cameras, memory sticks or photos to upload and send a few of the images, which are posted for all to see. The intent is for people who visit the site to scroll through the pictures for their lost memories or for faces they know.
In its first three months the Web site had more than 700,000 hits, according to Matt Preprost, the blog's 20-year-old co-founder and operator. Almost 60 people have sent images from cameras or memory sticks they found, and that's led to eight happy reunions between camera owners and their digital memories, he said.
'Something special, unique'
"I thought that it was something special and unique, but I was unsure of how long it was going to last," said Preprost, a student at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. He said most people are "dumbfounded" such a site exists, and aren't bothered by potential privacy issues.
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 texas family vacation it with its owner.
Preprost found it compelling cheap family vacation packages 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 crete vacation 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 all inclusive vacation depart boston ma said he serves a vacation 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.
Visually strong pictures
Preprost, who says the site focuses on the stories surrounding the cameras, asks people to send in two pictures that are visually strong, with identifiable people and landmarks. When an owner turns up, he puts them in contact with the person who found their memories.
Brett Moist, a 21-year-old photography student from Crystal Lake lost his memory card at Union Station in Chicago during a trip in January. He thought he lost it in Michigan, and figured it was long gone.
Then a picture whirlpool employees vacation of Moist and his girlfriend in front of Wrigley Field turned up on Preprost's Web site.
"A couple of weeks after I lost it my girlfriend's friend randomly stumbled onto the site and went crazy when she saw us," Moist said.
While Preprost hasn't run into any problems with people being upset about their pictures being posted online, the site is in a bit of a legal gray area, according R. Bruce Rich, a lawyer with Weil, Gotshal & paris affordable vacation Manges in New York City.
Whoever takes a picture vacation rentals canandaigua lake owns it and almost any photo is entitled to copyright protection, Rich said. While Rich said an argument could be made that the Web site makes unauthorized copies of pictures, it's clear the intent of the site is to get cameras back to their rightful owners, not to deny the camera's owner any commercial benefit.
Another legal problem could arise, though, if someone who appears in a posted image claims that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy when the picture was taken, Rich said.
Preprost said he'd remove pictures of anyone who objected. He said most people seem to appreciate the site, like George Metz, a 66-year-old Pennsylvania resident who lost his camera during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
A picture of him during a visit to Fantasy of Flight in Florida was posted on www.Ifoundyourcamera.net and Metz heard about it when a fellow member of a Star Wars re-enactment group spotted it -- through his computer in Denmark.
It turns out a student at Tulane University School of Medicine had picked dheap vacation to cozumel mexico up Metz's camera after standing near him during a parade.
"It was a real godsend gulf shores vacation rentals to get this message that she was going to send this back to me," he said. "There were a few pictures on there I really cared about."
Preprost hopes his site will inspire even more acts of kindness.
"I think people are inherently good, it's just, how many opportunities do we get to do a good thing for a total stranger?" he asked. "If I can inspire others, that's the one thing I would want to do in my life."
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This Jan. 26, 2008, image provided by George Metz, shows Metz, 66, as he stands next to an airplane in a picture during a visit to Fantasy of calgary vacation Flight in Polk City, Fla. After Metz lost the camera during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, this picture of him at Fantasy of Flight in Florida was posted on www.Ifoundyourcamera.net. A fellow member of Metz' Star Wars re-enactment group spotted it. (For The brazil vacation packages Pantagraph/Associated Press)
Metz was reunited with his digital camera after his pictures were posted at www.Ifoundyourcamera.net. (Associated Press/MEL EVANS)
Matt Preprost is the 20-year-old co-founder and operator of www.Ifoundyourcamera.net.(Associated Press/VAL HUFFMAN)
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Reader comments on this story - 3 total
Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.
branhan funjet vacation wrote on Jul 25, 2008 north georgia vacation 2:33 PM:
" Great idea! How disney world vacation airfare packages neat to be able to do this!
We know the pain of a lost camera at our house. My husband (somehow) left our camcorder in our apartment in Normal when we moved into our first home in December of 2006. Not only did we lose some personal tapes of us together, but we also lost memories we had hoped to keep great vacation packages close... Some showed what life was like before our daughter, one tape that had her first noises and smiles on it after birth (now she's 3) and other precious things like that... I could care less about the equipment if we could just get back the memories! "
BookLover wrote on Jul 18, 2008 8:56 PM:
" I found a camera... i recognized the people in sedona vacation rentals the picture and returned it myself. "
Gov't oppressed Mule wrote on Jul 18, 2008 1:18 PM:
" I just checked out this site. AWESOME idea. "
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