Found Photographs #002 – David Voss
15 years ago, a man named David Voss lived in the house that I currently live in. I know this because he left a box full of negatives, slides, prints and postcards, dating from 1989 to 1997 in the basement of the property. I spent several hours poring over the images, often having to peel apart prints that have become stuck together due to years of sitting in very damp conditions.
Although I have never met him, I feel like I know quite a lot about David Voss; he regularly went on skiing trips with his family, his mum and dad are from Bath but he moved to Leeds to live in this house, he collected Asterix comics and photographed them side by side and was a fan of Van Gogh paintings and Iron Maiden. He has a daughter, still a baby in ’96. Many of his friends appear throughout the years, a few make more fleeting appearances on school exchanges and proms or nights out. He is certainly a well travelled individual, with photographs taken all over Europe. And he was quite prolific in his recording of everyday life.
So what circumstances would have led David Voss to abandon all hundreds of photographs, memories spanning almost 10 years, in a damp cellar in Leeds? Photographs of family, friends, pets, trips, events, postcards and cards from abroad. I watched David Voss and those around him grow up over the hours I worked through the heaps of images, and immediately felt that he should be reunited with these images. Taken in a time before the digital technology boom, these are most likely the only copies of the photographs.
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I love found photos and the stories one can imagine from the lost images. I posted some on my blog of a lady who I tracked down eventually. I found her on Facebook. I felt obliged to give the photos back when she said her house had burned down. I kind of regret finding her now. I loved those photos!