40 Year Old Missing Photos
Dammo • July 29, 2020
Secondhand camera holds a secret!
The last few weeks have been interesting to say the least! Not just because we are all slowly coming out of lockdown, to various degrees, and starting work again, but because of my quest to find the owner of some pictures, found on a secondhand camera!
For the full story, we have to go back to the school summer holidays of 2019, when I was wondering around a lovely charity shop, in Bedfordshire with one of my daughters.
Now, as a professional photographer, I have an interest in vintage cameras and a modest collection, gathering dust around the house on various shelves. This has also led to my daughter showing an interest in the cameras of the past.
So, as I said, we were wondering around this charity shop (Emmaus Village, Carlton), when my daughter spots a lovely old Kodak Instamatic 100 for a few pounds and asks if she can have it. Thinking, I already have one of these and she found it first anyway, I said "yes, of course" (Turns out I didn't have one! Typical!). She handed it me to look at and obviously pay for, when I realise that, "this has still got a film inside!", "whatever you do, don't open the back!" I say, "it could, potentially, destroy whatever is on there".
After looking at the camera a bit longer and realising that it looked to be in full working order, my daughter and I came up with a little plan. She'll have the camera, use the rest of the exposures with her friends, then I'll get the film processed, and we'll see if anything comes out!
Now, I had no idea how long the film had been in the camera, or if anyone, at any point had opened the camera up or damaged it in anyway, but I wasn't expecting anything to still be worth salvaging, but figured you never know, my daughters shots may come out, which will be lovely for her.
Moving on a couple of months later and my daughter has taken her shots and left the film with me for processing. Of course, being a busy man, the film then sits in my office for months, with me thinking, as soon as I get a minute I'll look at it! Then the Corona Virus happens and work stops, in fact everything stops! I keep looking at this film, as I have very little else to do, but I can't even get that sorted as everything is shut! Eventually, things start to reopen and I get the film sent off to a company called Photo Hippo, in Burnley, and wait.
A few days later and Photo Hippo get in touch with a link to the digital versions of my images. To my complete surprise, there are 4 brilliant old images of a selection of people, then some pictures obviously taken by my daughter which haven't come out well due to the obvious age of this film! The 4 shots look like they are from the 70s or 80s!! I can't believe it! A holiday snap and 3 images possibly of a family in their garden.
Having spent a bit of time looking at the shots I thought it would be amazing if we could find these people and give them back their missing images! But where do you start, and what are the chances of finding them?!
After a bit of thought and coming to the conclusion that the chances of finding these people was very slim, I posted them onto a local Facebook page and went to bed.
I woke the next morning and had a quick scan of Facebook over breakfast to see if anything had happened over night and was surprised to see the reaction to my post! Everybody was saying "wouldn't it be great to find these people?!", "what an amazing story!" and "can we share your post?". I wasn't expecting this kind of reaction at all, but got completely wrapped up in it.
I quickly changed my privacy settings on the post, shared it to some more pages and asked everybody to share to pages I wasn't on, and we waited...
2 hours went by and the local BBC got in touch, another hour and Bedford Independent also got in touch! I was getting notifications all over the place! A couple of duff leads later, throughout the day and now the BBC and Bedford Independent had posted the story on their websites! I am still getting notifications every few minutes!
Day 2: 14:42 I get a message from Rachel, "The photos are my auntie, uncle and cousins". This seems for real as she names everyone, Gary, Ashley, Auntie Barbara, Uncle John! I can't believe we've found them! Rachel kindly messages everyone, to get in touch.
I then get a message from Simon, his brother is Gary (in one of the pictures), and Rachel is his cousin! It turns out that Simon is also in one of the pictures, but stranger still, Simon and I went to school together! What a small world!
Between us all, we work out that (Uncle) John is the previous owner of the camera, lives 5 minutes away from me and had no idea the Kodak had a film in it when he gave it away. It had just sat on a shelf for years, not being used, so he let it go.
Over the next few days John and I had many chats together, we met up and I gave him his photos that he didn't even realise he'd lost. We spoke with various journalists, even live on radio and filmed for ITV News. We even briefly spoke with ITV's This Morning about doing a live chat, but alas that didn't happen.
John was so happy to get his photos, as his wife and son had passed away in previous years and he said to me, with a smile, "it was like ghosts walking into my room", and with that our adventure came to an end.
For me, it was lovely to do something nice for a stranger, it was a bit of excitement and a nice distraction in strange times. All the reporters were happy to be talking about something non Covid related, and John said it shook his routine up a bit, in a good way and gave him something new to talk about at golf.
So a big thanks to everybody on Facebook who helped, all the reporters who got involved, Rachel for getting in touch and putting me back in touch with Simon and anyone else who came along for the journey.
Well here we are coming to the end of April 2021 and I must apologise for my silence within this blog! Last year was a tough year all round, for all of us in some way shape or form. For me, it was like a rollercoaster! From lockdown silence to 100 miles an hour busy and back to lockdown silence, sometimes within a couple of weeks! It definitely felt like a test of resource at times, but now, tentatively, it feels like we are finding our way back to some kind of normal! Well, my kind of normal anyway! From shooting trucks in the snow (God that was cold!!), to food in a pub kitchen (very hot!!) and back to headshots, which I haven't done in what feels like a really long time! It's been really good to be back! I have no idea what the rest of the year has in store for all of us, but currently I'm just going to enjoy whatever comes through the door (or email, which is more often the case) and get on with providing you, the customer (or viewer) with some great images. I shouldn't forget, I've had my first Covid jab, which was nice and easy and only made me feel a bit weird for a couple of days, and I've booked my second one for early July, so fingers crossed I can avoid this virus for a while longer and stay healthy, as I've seen what it can do to some people! So, with all that in mind I hope to get a few more blog posts up and live this year, with a view to showing what I'm getting up to! Let's hope it's a busy, and healthy 2021!
So there I was, back in January, at the Bicester Heritage Sunday Scramble, thinking "this year is going to be great!". I had so many plans, ideas and was taking bookings every week. I'd been working all over the country from Bradford to London and everywhere in between, then bang! The Corona virus hit us all and my work disappeared over night! Now I'm guessing that pretty much everyone has been going through the same feelings or something similar, as it's had a massive impact on all of us, whether you've actually caught the virus or not! As my title says, "Some things you just can't plan for!". Now we realise just how social we all are and how much we miss our daily interactions with family, friends and colleagues! It just feels weird, like we're all on pause, waiting for someone to press play! We're here now though and tomorrow is April already! I have massive respect for all the key workers out there, from the shop workers keeping the food stocks up, to the bin men (who've just passed my window) keeping our country clean, and everyone in between. My thoughts currently though are with the NHS staff, on the frontline, so to speak, fighting this virus everyday and putting their lives at risk to get us all back to a "normal" life again. It must be a mentally straining job to be in at the best of times, but currently it's a different level! Keep applauding these amazing people as who knows where we'd be without them! They need to know we appreciate them. Me, for now, I'm going to try to put aside my worries (as much as I can), stay positive and play my part by staying indoors (especially as I'm asthmatic), as that's what my friends in the NHS are telling me to do, and gently start planning for when everything goes back to "normal", as I can't wait to get out there meeting people and working again! Stay safe, Dammo
Welcome to my first ever blog! The first of many, I hope! Here I aim to ramble on, in my own unique way (don't expect any gripping stories), showing what I'm currently up to, with an image or two to keep you all interested. So here goes... The last couple of years have been very interesting for me as I finally took the leap of faith and started working for myself as a photographer and graphic designer! At times, it was very scary, but I'm still here and have learnt so much along the way! I can truly say, I've really enjoy it! So, what will 2020 bring for us all? The start of a new decade! Well, for me, I intend to push my photography even further! At the tail end of 2019 I gained my Licentiate qualification with the Master Photographers Association and my next goal is to qualify for my Associate level, again with the MPA. It's going to take a lot of hard work, alongside actually trying to earning some money, but I'm determined to get there. I will of course, as always, be trying to cover as many Mod and Automotive events as possible, as these will always be passions of mine. Of course if anybody wants me to cover anything else, please do get in touch. Last year also saw me travelling to Italy, Spain and Germany, so who knows where I'll end up this year, but the rollercoaster ride will no doubt be enjoyable wherever I go! So, on that note, I'll sign off my first blog, and hopefully, somebody, somewhere, will actually read my ramblings and be inspired to either tune in again to see what I'm up to or even to pick up a camera themselves! In the meantime, here's a few shots from last year. Happy New Year to you all. Dammo