Have you lost your camera recently? Mislaid it somewhere in a national park? Left it in a taxi? Dropped it in the gorilla pit? Anyone can be a victim of the thoughtlessness and/or sleepiness that can lead to Camera Loss.
‘How can I prevent Camera Loss?’ I hear you ask, wishing I’d get to the point. Well, you can’t prevent cameras from getting lost, but you can do something so your camera can be found very soon after it has vanished.
All you have to do is take some photos – which you never delete from your camera – so when someone finds your camera at the bottom of the gorilla pit they are able to locate you and return the lost property to its rightful owner.
To illustrate just how you can safeguard your camera from the crippling effects of Camera Loss, here are the pics that I always keep on my camera.
Great piece. Its really funny bc this actually happened to me on the beach in Barcelona this past April. My camera fell out of my pocket and I had given up on finding it-I was really bummed bc I lost many photos that were important to me and irreplaceable. . The next day, after much sulking, I got an email from a stranger via Facebook. Some kind soul found my camera, looked through the hundreds of pics and saw a photo I took in the Philippines in Nov ’07. I was staying at a little “resort” in an inlet that was beautiful and so cheap that I took a pic of the bill that had my name on it. The guy who found my camera saw my name and looked me up on Facebook and then he shipped the camera back to me in NJ. A very nice person and an experience that taught me to spread kindness everywhere regardless to whom.
I wish I had seen this post before I lost my camera 🙁 But I’m hoping this craigslist ad I created will help me find my camera and the fantastic, yet humiliating photos on the memory card…
http://stlouis.craigslist.org/laf/1511732041.html
Wow. I wish that I’d thought of this when I lost my camera…
How’d you ensure that the person returning it doesn’t try to steal (or misplace) you too?
Great idea, but I’d setup a Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail address expressly for the purpose instead, and forward email from the “lost camera” account to my main email account.
I wouldn’t want to give away too much info in the message. As it is, chances are the finder/stealer would already have access to oodles and oodles of my personal info stored in the camera/card/item!
You have such a cute smile!
Very cool, love this playful approach and unless your camera is stolen I am sure it will find way back home to you 🙂
PJ
Really great. The bathroom photo is hilarious
Very funny!
It is not just about the camera, isn’t it?
Do you have a second shower cap to share the bath?
What if you shoot film? You would have to have the good fortune of someone finding your camera that would pay for the film to be developed. Very amusing and truly useful! Good on ya.
this is awesome!!!
brilliant idea…! hopefully you get your camera back soon if you haven’t already 🙂
Lol! I would return your camera.
Turned your photos into a gif on my blog. Hope you approve!
Great idea. I found a camera recently, and went through the 100 or so photos to see if I could find some way to contact the owner. I found photos of a new born baby and its birth certificate with its name, but I googled a bunch and couldn’t find any references to the baby and/or its parents online! I put it on lost & found on craigslist, but I have yet to get any responses.
If it were a really nice camera, I might not be going through so much trouble to find the owner 🙂
Awesome idea, and I love your sense of humor with the whole thing. 🙂
I actually took a picture of some text: “If you found this camera, please send it back to me (address), and I will be grateful”. Or so. It certainly takes up less card space. The guy’s idea is cute and all, but I fear a thief might just format the whole card anyway…
Amusing,good luck !
A more realistic one it would be:
Lucky you,you just got yourself a camera!
just to keep your conscience clean please
send me the memory card to this address
****** ** ** **** Enjoy it !
but if you send the camera, you’ll earn a spot
in heaven.
I think the idea of it personalizes the finder/thief to the rightful owner.. making them feel guilty not returning it.
and it gives them the opportunity to return it blamelessly.
Its a cute idea, I hope it works!
Love it! Too funny!
this is so wonderful.
but wot if they are blind?
or deaf?
there are a lot of things to consider these days.
what if they are mute?
i think you have a good thing going tho.
xo.eternal
restartist.
You better add this one too… for thieves and keepers.
“OR you can keep the camera but at least upload the pictures to Flickr or Photobucket and mail me the link. I don’t want to loose my holiday photos”
lol this one is seriously funny! i feel like taking a bunch of shots like this and saving it in mhy camera memory
Seriously Genius. And it probably will work too! Finally at the same time you probably will make someone’s day when they find your camera, or steal it.
You left your camera in a national park? It’s not yours anymore. It’s litter. The minimum fine for littering in California is $100.
I found a Minolta Capios 115 (SN:-01523657) at a tram stop. I waited and the owner never returned. I developed the film and the owners or their Japanese? friends were standing in front of a hotel. The prints were date stamped. The hotel refused to help and Minolta also refused as they preferred the insurance company replace a lost camera rather than reunite the owners with their lost camera. Good Luck.
Further to the above post, I’ve also posted here:- http://forums.photographyreview.com/showthread.php?p=395284#post395284
Fantastic. Brilliant! I am envious of you for thinking this up! Your pictures a perfect!
Standing ovation from me!
Sincerely;
Colin Graves
I engraved “Not for sale or Pawn” on mine with an electric pencil I also included my name, address and Ph#.
If you find mine you can have both the pics and the mem card and i`ll even give you a modest reward, just send back the $800.00 camera!
There are some honest people out there, But there are some real thugs too! Needless to say, when traveling I have it securely around my neck! I never take the camera bag off unless I am in a vehicle or a room Even then if I leave the vehicle or room the bag and cam goes with! I figure if the IDIOTS will steal a broken igloo cooler with Mold inside out of the back of my pickup truck. They wouldn`t hesitate to break a window to get a Nice camera!
i think there is top secret photos in this mangy camera
Great idea! i dont have ur camera, but now i have your website! thanks for sharing it.
😀
Brilliant AND hilarious ! 20 thumbs up dude!( borrowing from 4 ppl above me .. thats right .. do the math! )
Nice, but I just have a few of my business cards in my camera bag. If my large camera isn’t round my neck it’s in the bag anyway.
brilliant! this is an idea worth aping…..*:0)
Dude that was so freaking hilarious !!
what a great idea !!
🙂
Thank you!
*golf clap*
That is so good. My phone left itself (accidently by me in reality) in a taxi in Singapore in September(never to be seen by me again). It cost me lots of $ to replace and I still have problems trusting myself with any portable items of value. I so should have had a plan like yours. Well done!!!
Very clever, thanks for the chuckle.
ANYWAYS, this post is currently showing up as one of the most-faved items in Google Reader. Cheers!
You are hilarious! Thanks for sharing — I really enjoyed this post! =)
I can only assume this is humourous….because nobody is going to find a camera and return it. The only thing u might find, is a virus email to ur email address, with a kid teaching u a lesson by being so dumb that he wipes ur entire computer, thus u have no pictures at all!
Next, ur gonna make a post about making a label with ur full address inside ur mobile phone incase that gets lost….
But as i read my reply, i can only assume, u made this blog to see how many dumbass’s would actually do it….that would be humouress
Very good tutorial, but your tip is not very convenient for my 4×5″ camera.
Hahahahaha. 😀
Great and funny idea!
Only thing: your email address is written far too small (and it is way too long and complicated, too).
And I really love that picture that I don’t remember. It had a rubber ducky inside, I think 😉
Soooo great, love it!
I laughed, I cried, I wee’d a little bit! <3
Nice idea.. but that will only work if whoever find it didn’t format the memory card.
But what good would it be having this Andrew’s picts on my digital camera !!!!?!?!?!?
Really creative Andrew !!!
this is so clever and very funny.
…Oh…i FOUND it…i’ll be right over…
It is personal and cute. I think probability, that a person would return a camera to it’s owner with such message, increases significantly. Well, jealous as I am of this great idea and implementation, I need to find something about what I can complain. The title , “A Pictorial Guide to avoiding Camera Loss”, is not accurate. You can not avoid a camera loss with this guide. But you might get it back.
Awesome !!!