Photographer Finds Street Images of Japan on Used $25 NYC Camera
A photographer discovered beautiful street photos of Japan on a used $25 digital camera that she bought in New York City.
Photographer Bao Ngo purchased a Sony Cybershot DSC-T10 camera for $25 at a used electronic store in midtown Manhattan, New York in late December 2017.
When Ngo returned home, she discovered that the previous owner of the Sony Cybershot DSC-T10 had left some intriguing and beautiful photographs on the camera.
@baohngo there are many more but i didnt want to post because some of them seem pretty personal #digicam #digitalcamera #vintagecamera #usedcamera #2000scamera #y2kcamera #streetphotography #2000s #2000saesthetic #japan #tokyo ♬ Oblivion – Grimes
Ngo shared a handful of the photos that she found on the used camera in a video on TikTok earlier this year. The clip amassed over 500,000 views.
According to Ngo, the camera’s former owner appeared to live in Japan and had taken a series of street photos in the country that were dated from March to August 2007.
Ngo was left wondering how the used Sony Cybershot DSC-T10 had ended up in New York City — and why it had taken over a decade between the former owner using the camera and it ending up in her own hands.
Discovered Photos on Digital Cameras
“It’s not uncommon to discover photos on a used digital camera so I wasn’t surprised but I was a little excited since it hadn’t happened to me before,” Brooklyn-based photographer Ngo tells PetaPixel .
“I think the photos are simple street photos but they’re beautiful, especially the composition.”
Ngo co-runs a Discord server called @Digicam.Love which serves as an online community for both professional and hobbyist photographers who shoot with older often forgotten digital point-and-shoot cameras from the late 1990s through to the mid-2010s.
While this was the first time that Ngo had found photos on a device, she has shared some of the images that other digital camera enthusiasts in the @Digicam.love community have discovered on used digital cameras.
“I think found photos on used digicams are special because they are documented proof of brief moments that could otherwise be forgotten,” Ngo says.
It’s so easy to take a digital image, and you don’t need to worry about running out of film, so sometimes I feel like the photos are more casual, a very realistic or mundane window into people’s lives. It’s not as often super posed or meant to sell a fantasy.”
PetaPixel previously reported on a photographer who discovered undeveloped film inside an old 1920s-era Kodak Series II camera in a small shop in New York.
Ngo’s photography can be found on Instagram and TikTok. Join the @digi.cam.love community on Instagram.
