Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, Las Vegas, originally uploaded by catface3.

Our first camera of the new year is dropped off by Sarah S. in Las Vegas:

I passed it on to a couple I met in Margaritaville on the Las Vegas strip at a TripAdvisor meet and greet, and I’ve checked his screen name and they’re from Philadelphia. He did mention something about knowing people who were travelling to Aruba soon, so maybe it’ll get passed to them.

Thanks Sarah, and welcome to the community!
And if you’re the couple who have the camera now, let us know where you are, and we’ll add you to the map!

Matt and Kris, originally uploaded by webponce.

Happy New Year! and a great start to the year.

Our first camera is on its long journey back home from Matt and Kris, who posted a few  images of themselves with the cam (and fish, and cats ;)

When the images are developed, we will, of course, be posting them to flickr and writing up the full story on the site.

1. Developments (The Blog): If you’re reading this, you’re probably already aware of the blog, so make sure to come back regularly to find out what is happening with the cameras. We update the blog most frequently, and it has lovely pictures and whatnot.

2. Flickr Group: if you’re visually orientated, you can keep an eye on our flickr group, which is where we’ll be storing all of the images related to the project. you can also join as a member, which allows you to post related images.

3. Twitter: We’re on Twitter as @foundacam. if you’re on twitter also, follow us, and we’ll tweet every time something happens.

4. Facebook: If you’re a member of Facebook, you can join our group, where we will also be posting updates (although mostly from the blog). You can also take part in any discussions and invite your friends to get involved. We’ll be doing a map app at some point too.

5. RSS: You can also follow our blog via RSS in case you’re an RSS junkie.

If you’ve taken part in the project, we will also send you the occasional email to let you know if we’ve heard about one of your cameras, or just to say hello. Would you like your DMP hit in any other format? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll try and oblige.

Crikey. I was expecting to have a fairly run-of-the-mill Christmas this year, the best present I was given (apart from being able to spend time with my family, of course) was an email from Matt and Kris in Tucson, Arizona in the US:

Howdy
I was in Altadena, CA for an art show that my girlfriend and I were in at the Gallery At The End Of The World. One of the other artists in the show had seen one of the bags saying “Please pick me up” and had brought the camera to the gallery. He took a few pics with it and a few of the other artists as well, and then since my girlfriend and I were headed back to Tucson, AZ at the end of that weekend, we brought the camera with us and took a few pics along the way. There were only a few pics left on it, and it is now finished, so we would like to get it back to you…

Fantastic news! Camera 29 was released into the wild less than one month ago by Melanie A. at Venice Beach, but has clearly already found a number of kind new owners who entered into the spirit of the project.

The camera is now winging its way back to me, and as soon as I have the camera, it will be developed and we’ll get the images online as soon as possible. We’re really chuffed about our first complete camera, and can’t wait to see the images. Thanks to Melanie and of course Kris and Matt, and anyone else who picked up Camera 29 along the way.

Cafe, originally uploaded by webponce.

I was in Stockholm on the weekend for my 30th birthday, so I think its only right that I dropped off the 30th camera at the same time.

The camera was left in the the photography section of the Kulturhuset library, just off Sergels Torg, which is pretty much the centre of the Norrmalm district of Stockholm.

The Kulturhuset is a creative hive of activity, so I can only hope the camera finds an interesting new owner.

I’d like to take this chance to also say thankyou to everyone involved in the project so far, especially those of you who have offered to setup your own cameras around the world. The project will be steaming ahead in 2009, so please stay tuned, and have a great xmas break!

The lovely Amy T just handed me a camera [...] for my trip home to California. It will stay safe with me until I leave on Friday, then I’ll pass it on when it lets me know it wants to go. The camera was handed to me at the BBC offices on Langham Place.

Thanks for being one of the rare few who have a camera Isabel, can’t wait to hear more about its journey.

You can read all about Camera 25 at its page.

I found another really nice project this morning, where Nat Friedman and friends handed out a whole load of disposable cameras to the kids in the poorest areas of Rio. The images captured are fascinating and moving, as well as just great pics.

The return rate was pretty good; many of the kids were waiting in the street from 7am to noon for us to pick up their cameras. We got 26 back out of maybe 32 we handed out. This amounted to 632 photos. Many of them are excellent, especially for someone who’s probably never used a camera before, and with a cheap disposable. Some are sad, some are funny.

You can read the full story at http://nat.org/rocinha/

Tracy, who very recently agreed to take part, told us about another ‘pass it on’ type project she’d been involved in before, although using slightly different medium:

Just for fun - I took part in a fun project many, many, years ago called the “nicker exchange” which was a sort of like a chain letter when you joined you had to buy a pair of nickers in the persons size who was at the top of the chain letter and then send it in the post to the person at the top of the chain, who received a lovely pair of NEW drawers in the post every couple of days.

Glad to see ideas come in all shapes and sizes! You’ll see Tracy’s camera on the website in the next few weeks

I would love to pass the camera around and have people take pictures of their favourite pair of shoes, the camera could also travel around the world as I have many friends that travel

Welcome to Tracy and all of the wonderful people who have already created camera bags for us, or are in the process of doing so.

Lovely related project being run by Tim Devin - a custom magazine created collaboratively by a community and left somewhere for a passerby to read.

http://timdevin.com/ileftthishereforyoutoread-about.html

Camera 29, left in Venice Beach, CA, originally uploaded by webponce.

Melanie A left this home made camera bag in Venice Beach last week.

I’m excited to have finally dropped out off my first camera!
It was dropped off on Friday at about 12:30pm. in Venice Beach, California.

More info and images up on the Camera 29 page. Thanks to Melanie for this drop.