Memory card leads to long-lost camera's owner

Found by Vermont teacher Jon Noerr in a creek near Pharaoh Lake, a muddy Canon XT Rebel had clearly taken its last shot. But the memory card was ship-shape, and its contents made it possible to track owner Michael Comeau down and give him back his long-lost photos.

The memory card’s contents contained a hodgepodge of urban streetscapes, photos of apparent loved ones and random signs. He noticed most of the photos appeared to be in one general area, which he believed to be in one of New York City’s outer boroughs. ... But just two photos served as Noerr’s “holy grail,” a shot of a young woman sitting on a front stoop of a house numbered 327 and a shot taken seconds later of the sky that captured a street sign reading 3rd Street.

"I think I found your camera": Visual clues help man solve mystery [PostStar.com. Photo: John Noerr]

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Max

A bit of glass cleaner and a quick polish and that camera will be as good as new. On eBay anyway.
http://boardgamegeek.com/user/mcdrunk McDrunk

There’s someone on Reddit right now on the same quest.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/xqo20/lost_and_found_sd_card_with_vaction_photos_can/?sort=top
invictus

*sigh*
Holy grail? Really? Mr. Alexander, I’m pretty sure you meant “Rosetta Stone.”
- http://BrianEaston.net/ Brian Easton
  
  This just in: Internet full of pedants.
http://twitter.com/_Engineer666 _Engineer

It’s not difficult to imagine “why?”. Once the curiosity is peaked, the game is on.
Like when it took me a full day of Googling to find out that the car on the Beastie Boys’ “Ill Communication” album jacket is a ’62 Pontiac Catalina convertible.
Totally useless information tough…
- Little John
  
  Once the curiosity is piqued …
  
  This reply dedicated to fellow commenter Brian Easton.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

I’d feel really bad for anyone that went to that much effort to return my memory card. Chances are it’d be full of dud photo’s and the odd ‘dog sunbathing in amusing position’ shot.
- Ryan_T_H
  
  And yet that same memory card totally makes your week and restores your faith in humanity if it shows up a couple years after said dog has passed away.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Now you’ve just made me sad.
    - Ryan_T_H
      
      Sorry! Go hug your dog. Take it for a walk. Play fetch. Life will be good again!
https://twitter.com/PhoetrySlam Cyran0

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067469/Google-helps-camera-owner-Markus-Thompson-British-Columbia-Canon-EOS-1000D.html

Yes, yes, I know: Daily Mail.
Beat me later.
penguinchris

CF cards have blank lines on them for you to write your contact information on; all mine have my e-mail in permanent ink. Gets harder with SD cards though.
http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins

Did he try http://www.stolencamerafinder.com ? I put an image of my contact info on my cameras, and lock the image so I don’t accidentally delete it.
Toby

My family found a camera. We chased down several false leads from the photos until we tracked down the family that had lost it (the fruitful clues: 2 first names on 2 birthday cakes, a crowd shot of a football game and a logo on a cheer-leading uniform). About a month after my sister sent the camera back, we got a note that the dad in the family just died — they were happy to have the pictures because it had all the photos of the last year of his life, including the last vacation they had together.

There were a lot more amazing details to this story. We never thought to contact a newspaper, though — maybe we should have.