This Start-Up Wants to Connect You with Your Lost Photos
By Cassie Shortsleeve. Photos: Getty.
Spending hundreds on a new GoPro or Canon only to leave it behind in a hotel room halfway across the globe (or shatter it into pieces while striving for that perfect shot) is a traveling photographer’s tragedy. But now, thankfully, it might be a little bit easier to reconnect with your lost photos and gear.
Last week—to coincide with The Photography Show in Birmingham, U.K.—Trov, an app that allows travelers to insure valuable items like laptops or cameras for short periods of time (perhaps only when you’re traveling, for example) launched a blog in partnership with crowdsourcing lost photo site CameraFound. The post showcases a slew of images taken from cameras left behind in the U.K. over the past 10 years. The hope? That travelers recognize the photos or people in them.
“Trov works by providing instant, on-demand insurance so that your gear is protected anywhere you go,” Alex Dickel, a spokesperson for Trov tells Condé Nast Traveler. It appeals, for example, to aspiring photographers who might only use their gear a few days of the year or a few days of the month. (As of now, you can only sign up for Trov policies in the U.K. and Australia, says Dickel, though the company is in the process of expanding internationally.) On CameraFound, on the other hand, travelers (and even police) can post pictures of cameras or photos found all over the planet; and people who left belongings behind can post in the hopes of getting them back. “This [new partnership] is about returning your memories—your images and your gear—back to you,” says Dickel.
So, if you see a photo that looks familiar on the blog, contact Trov directly. “A few people have already reached out and we are working with them right now, not only to send back the images but also to make sure they get their gear,” says Dickel.
For now, only forgetful tourists in the U.K. are in luck (read: The camera you left in the depths of Grand Canyon might sadly be a goner) but fingers-crossed the project will reach the U.S. soon. “We’ve had a lot of success with this project in the U.K. and we're talking about ways we can bring this to a larger global audience,” says Dickel.
Here’s to hoping: We're still holding out for every camera we’ve left behind and all of the photos we never got to frame.
This story originally appeared on Conde Nast Traveler.
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