Found photography

Found photography is a genre of photography and/or visual art based on the recovery (and possible exhibition) of lost, unclaimed, or discarded photographs. It is related to vernacular photography, but differs in the fact that the "presenter" or exhibitor of the photographs did not "shoot" the photograph itself, does not know anything about the photographer, and generally does not know anything about the subject(s) of the photographs. Found photos are generally acquired at flea markets, thrift and other secondhand stores, yard sales, estate and tage sales, in dumpsters and trash cans, between the pages of books, or literally just "found" anywhere.

Much of the appeal of found photography is the mystery regarding the original photographer or subject matter. Barry Mauer lists four practices of looking that influence inferences made in regards to the origin of found photos; voyeurism, Sherlock Holmes' style deductive reasoning, Surrealism, and with the eyes of a cultural anthropologist. He describes the ideal found photography exhibit as inviting a viewer to sample all of these viewing practices in order to achieve two results: to force a viewer to consider the effect of their own perceptual process during their viewing and to build the widest spectrum of possible meaning within the limitations of found photography.

The history of found photography is not well documented because it most likely started as someone's hobby before being introduced to the art world, but even its first ventures into fine art are uncertain because the art community has not received found photography well, much like its predecessor found art.

Found photography actually falls underneath the umbrella of found art, which has its origins with Marcel Duchamp and his readymades in the 1910s. Since found photography utilizes found objects to generate artwork it is considered found art. However, the found art movement was about the decontextualization of art, where the form or shape of the artwork creates the meaning rather than the context. As such found photography treads a gray-line between found art and collage because of its relationship between form and context.

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