Before March, 2011, I was a photographic retoucher based in New York City. We're pale, gray creatures. We hide in dark, windowless rooms, and generally avoid sunlight. We make skinny models skinnier, perfect skin more perfect, and the impossible possible, and we get criticized in the press all the time, but some of us are actually talented artists with years of experience and a real appreciation for images and photography.
Prije ožujka 2011., bavila sam se retuširanjem fotografija u New Yorku. Mi smo blijeda, siva bića. Skrivamo se u mraku, prostorijama bez prozora i općenito izbjegavamo sunce. Mršave modele činimo još mršavijima, savršenu kožu savršenijom, a nemoguće činimo mogućim. Stalno nas kritiziraju u medijima, ali neki od nas zaista su nadareni umjetnici s godinama iskustva, i zbilja cijene slike i fotografije.
On March 11, 2011, I watched from home, as the rest of the world did, as the tragic events unfolded in Japan. Soon after, an organization I volunteer with, All Hands Volunteers, were on the ground, within days, working as part of the response efforts. I, along with hundreds of other volunteers, knew we couldn't just sit at home, so I decided to join them for three weeks.
11. ožujka 2011., iz svog doma gledala sam, kao i ostatak svijeta, tragične događaje koji su se odvijali u Japanu. Ubrzo nakon toga, organizacija u kojoj volontiram, All Hands Volunteers, bila je na terenu u roku nekoliko dana, i radila u sklopu akcija za pomoć. Ja sam, kao i stotine drugih volontera, znala da ne možemo samo sjediti doma pa sam odlučila pridružiti im se na tri tjedna.
On May the 13th, I made my way to the town of Ōfunato. It's a small fishing town in Iwate Prefecture, about 50,000 people, one of the first that was hit by the wave. The waters here have been recorded at reaching over 24 meters in height, and traveled over two miles inland. As you can imagine, the town had been devastated.
13. svibnja stigla sam u grad Ōfunato. To je ribarski gradić u prefekturi Iwate, s 50-ak tisuća stanovnika, jedan od prvih koje je pogodio val. Zabilježeno je da je razina vode dosegla više od 24 metra visine i putovala preko 3 km u unutrašnjost. Kao što pretpostavljate, grad je bio razoren.
We pulled debris from canals and ditches. We cleaned schools. We de-mudded and gutted homes ready for renovation and rehabilitation. We cleared tons and tons of stinking, rotting fish carcasses from the local fish processing plant. We got dirty, and we loved it.
Čistili smo naplavine iz kanala i jaraka. Čistili smo škole. Čistili smo domove od blata i praznili ih kako bi bili spremni za renovaciju i obnovu. Uklonili smo tone smrdljivih, trulih ribljih lešina iz lokalne tvornice za preradu ribe. Zaprljali smo se i to nam se sviđalo.
For weeks, all the volunteers and locals alike had been finding similar things. They'd been finding photos and photo albums and cameras and SD cards. And everyone was doing the same. They were collecting them up, and handing them in to various places around the different towns for safekeeping.
Tjednima su volonteri i mještani pronalazili slične stvari. Nalazili su fotografije i albume, kamere i SD kartice. Svi su radili isto. Skupljali su ih i predavali na razna mjesta diljem gradova na čuvanje.
Now, it wasn't until this point that I realized that these photos were such a huge part of the personal loss these people had felt. As they had run from the wave, and for their lives, absolutely everything they had, everything had to be left behind.
Do tog trena nisam shvaćala da su te fotografije tako velik dio osobnog gubitka koji su ljudi osjećali. Kako su bježali od vala, spašavajući svoj život, baš sve što su imali, sve su morali ostaviti za sobom.
At the end of my first week there, I found myself helping out in an evacuation center in the town. I was helping clean the onsen, the communal onsen, the huge giant bathtubs. This happened to also be a place in the town where the evacuation center was collecting the photos. This is where people were handing them in, and I was honored that day that they actually trusted me to help them start hand-cleaning them.
Krajem mog prvog tjedna ovdje, pomagala sam u evakuacijskom centru u gradu. Pomagala sam čistiti onsen, gradske terme, ogromne kade. To je ujedno bilo i mjesto u gradu na kojem je evakuacijski centar skupljao fotografije. Ovdje ljudi su ih predavali i bila sam počašćena što su mi povjerili pomaganje oko ručnog čišćenja fotografija.
Now, it was emotional and it was inspiring, and I've always heard about thinking outside the box, but it wasn't until I had actually gotten outside of my box that something happened. As I looked through the photos, there were some were over a hundred years old, some still in the envelope from the processing lab, I couldn't help but think as a retoucher that I could fix that tear and mend that scratch, and I knew hundreds of people who could do the same. So that evening, I just reached out on Facebook and asked a few of them, and by morning the response had been so overwhelming and so positive, I knew we had to give it a go. So we started retouching photos.
Bilo je emotivno i nadahnulo me. I prije sam čula za izraz "misliti izvan okvira", ali tek kad sam izišla iz svojih okvira, nešto se dogodilo. Kako sam pregledavala fotografije, od kojih su neke bile i starije od 100 godina, neke još u omotnicama s razvijanja, nisam mogla ne pomisliti da kao retušer mogu popraviti ovu poderotinu ili ogrebotinu, a znala sam i stotine ljudi koji bi mogli učiniti isto. Te večeri otišla sam na Facebook i pitala nekoliko njih za pomoć. Do jutra je odaziv bio toliko velik i pozitivan da sam znala da moram pokušati. Tako smo počeli retuširati fotografije.
This was the very first. Not terribly damaged, but where the water had caused that discoloration on the girl's face had to be repaired with such accuracy and delicacy. Otherwise, that little girl isn't going to look like that little girl anymore, and surely that's as tragic as having the photo damaged. (Applause)
Ovo je bila prva. Nije odviše oštećena, no voda je promijenila boju na djevojčičinom licu te se to moralo ispraviti s velikom preciznošću i osjetljivošću. Inače ta djevojčica više ne bi izgledala kao ta djevojčica, što bi bilo tragično koliko i oštećenje fotografije. (Pljesak)
Over time, more photos came in, thankfully, and more retouchers were needed, and so I reached out again on Facebook and LinkedIn, and within five days, 80 people wanted to help from 12 different countries. Within two weeks, I had 150 people wanting to join in. Within Japan, by July, we'd branched out to the neighboring town of Rikuzentakata, further north to a town called Yamada. Once a week, we would set up our scanning equipment in the temporary photo libraries that had been set up, where people were reclaiming their photos. The older ladies sometimes hadn't seen a scanner before, but within 10 minutes of them finding their lost photo, they could give it to us, have it scanned, uploaded to a cloud server, it would be downloaded by a gaijin, a stranger, somewhere on the other side of the globe, and it'd start being fixed.
S vremenom je stiglo još fotografija i trebali smo više retušera pa sam opet otišla na Facebook i LinkedIn i kroz 5 dana pomoć je ponudilo 80 ljudi iz 12 zemalja. U dva se tjedna 150 ljudi željelo priključiti. Do srpnja smo se u Japanu proširili do susjednog grada Rikuzentakate i sjevernije do grada Yamade. Jednom tjedno postavili bismo svoju opremu za skeniranje u privremenim pohranama fotografija, gdje su ljudi preuzimali svoje fotografije. Neke starije gospođe nikad nisu vidjele skener, ali u roku 10 minuta nakon pronalaska svoje izgubljene fotografije, mogle su nam je dati, mi bismo je skenirali, uploadali na cloud server, a tada bi je downloadao gaijin, stranac, negdje na drugoj strani svijeta i počeo je popravljati.
The time it took, however, to get it back is a completely different story, and it depended obviously on the damage involved. It could take an hour. It could take weeks. It could take months. The kimono in this shot pretty much had to be hand-drawn, or pieced together, picking out the remaining parts of color and detail that the water hadn't damaged. It was very time-consuming.
Potpuno je druga priča vrijeme za koje je slika vraćena, a ovisilo je, naravno, o šteti na fotografiji. Moglo je trajati sat vremena, ali i tjednima ili mjesecima. Kimono na ovoj snimci većinom se morao ručno nacrtati, ili spojiti zajedno, birajući preostale dijelove boje i detalje koje voda nije oštetila. Trebalo je mnogo vremena.
Now, all these photos had been damaged by water, submerged in salt water, covered in bacteria, in sewage, sometimes even in oil, all of which over time is going to continue to damage them, so hand-cleaning them was a huge part of the project. We couldn't retouch the photo unless it was cleaned, dry and reclaimed.
Sve ove fotografije oštetila je voda, bile su uronjene u slanu vodu, prekrivene bakterijama, kanalizacijskom vodom, ponekad čak i uljem, a sve to i dalje će ih oštećivati pa je ručno čišćenje bilo ogroman dio projekta. Nismo mogli retuširati fotografiju ako nije očišćena, suha i ako vlasnik nije pronađen.
Now, we were lucky with our hand-cleaning. We had an amazing local woman who guided us. It's very easy to do more damage to those damaged photos. As my team leader Wynne once said, it's like doing a tattoo on someone. You don't get a chance to mess it up.
Imali smo sreće s ručnim čišćenjem. Vodila nas je jedna čudesna mještanka. Vrlo je lako još više oštetiti oštećene fotografije. Kako je Wynne, voditeljica mog tima, jednom rekla, to je poput tetoviranja. Ne smijete pogriješiti.
The lady who brought us these photos was lucky, as far as the photos go. She had started hand-cleaning them herself and stopped when she realized she was doing more damage. She also had duplicates. Areas like her husband and her face, which otherwise would have been completely impossible to fix, we could just put them together in one good photo, and remake the whole photo.
Žena koja nam je donijela ove fotografije imala je sreće, što se tiče fotografija. Počela ih je sama ručno čistiti i stala je kad je shvatila da ih još više uništava. Imala je duplikate. Područja poput njenog muža i njenog lica, koja bi inače bilo nemoguće popraviti, jednostavno smo spojili u jednu dobru fotografiju i iznova načinili cijelu fotografiju.
When she collected the photos from us, she shared a bit of her story with us. Her photos were found by her husband's colleagues at a local fire department in the debris a long way from where the home had once stood, and they'd recognized him. The day of the tsunami, he'd actually been in charge of making sure the tsunami gates were closed. He had to go towards the water as the sirens sounded. Her two little boys, not so little anymore, but her two boys were both at school, separate schools. One of them got caught up in the water. It took her a week to find them all again and find out that they had all survived.
Kad je preuzela slike, ispričala nam je dio svoje priče. Njezine fotografije pronašle su kolege njezinog muža u mjesnom vatrogasnom domu među naplavinama daleko od mjesta gdje je nekad bio njihov dom i prepoznali su ga. Na dan tsunamija, on je bio zadužen osigurati da su brane za tsunami zatvorene. Morao je ići prema vodi kad su se sirene oglasile. Njezina dva sinčića, koja više nisu tako mala, bila su u školi, u dvije različite škole. Jednog od njih sustigla je voda. Trebalo joj je tjedan dana kako bi ih sve pronašla i saznala da su svi preživjeli.
The day I gave her the photos also happened to be her youngest son's 14th birthday. For her, despite all of this, those photos were the perfect gift back to him, something he could look at again, something he remembered from before that wasn't still scarred from that day in March when absolutely everything else in his life had changed or been destroyed.
Onog dana kad sam joj predala slike ujedno je bio i 14. rođendan njenog mlađeg sina. Unatoč svemu, za nju su te fotografije bile savršen dar za njega, nešto što je mogao gledati, nešto čega se mogao sjećati otprije, što nije imalo ožiljke od onog dana u ožujku kad se baš sve ostalo u njegovom životu promijenilo ili je bilo uništeno.
After six months in Japan, 1,100 volunteers had passed through All Hands, hundreds of whom had helped us hand-clean over 135,000 photographs, the large majority — (Applause) — a large majority of which did actually find their home again, importantly. Over five hundred volunteers around the globe helped us get 90 families hundreds of photographs back, fully restored and retouched. During this time, we hadn't really spent more than about a thousand dollars in equipment and materials, most of which was printer inks.
Nakon šest mjeseci u Japanu 1100 volontera izmijenilo se kroz All Hands. Stotine njih pomoglo nam je ručno očistiti preko 135.000 fotografija, od kojih je velika većina -- (Pljesak) -- od kojih je velika većina opet pronašla svoj dom. a to je važno. Više od 500 volontera iz cijelog svijeta pomoglo nam je vratiti stotine fotografija 90 obitelji, potpuno obnovljene i retuširane. Tijekom tog razdoblja, nismo potrošili više od 1000 dolara na opremu i materijale, većinom na tintu za printere.
We take photos constantly. A photo is a reminder of someone or something, a place, a relationship, a loved one. They're our memory-keepers and our histories, the last thing we would grab and the first thing you'd go back to look for. That's all this project was about, about restoring those little bits of humanity, giving someone that connection back.
Stalno stvaramo fotografije. Fotografija je podsjetnik na nekoga ili nešto, na mjesto, vezu, voljenu osobu. One su čuvari naših sjećanja i naše povijesti, zadnja stvar koju bismo zgrabili i prva stvar koju se vraćamo potražiti. To je bila poanta našeg projekta: obnavljanje tih komadića ljudskosti, vraćanje te veze ljudima.
When a photo like this can be returned to someone like this, it makes a huge difference in the lives of the person receiving it.
Kad ovakvu fotografiju nekome možemo vratiti ovakvu, to mnogo znači u životu osobe koja je prima.
The project's also made a big difference in the lives of the retouchers. For some of them, it's given them a connection to something bigger, giving something back, using their talents on something other than skinny models and perfect skin.
Projekt je ostavio traga i u životima retušera. Nekima od njih dao je vezu s nečim većim, vraćanjem natrag, korištenjem njihovih talenata za nešto drugo osim mršavih modela i savršene kože.
I would like to conclude by reading an email I got from one of them, Cindy, the day I finally got back from Japan after six months.
Za kraj bih pročitala e-mail koji sam dobila od Cindy, jedne od retušera, na dan kad sam se napokon vratila iz Japana nakon šest mjeseci.
"As I worked, I couldn't help but think about the individuals and the stories represented in the images. One in particular, a photo of women of all ages, from grandmother to little girl, gathered around a baby, struck a chord, because a similar photo from my family, my grandmother and mother, myself, and newborn daughter, hangs on our wall. Across the globe, throughout the ages, our basic needs are just the same, aren't they?" Thank you. (Applause) (Applause)
"Kako sam radila, nisam mogla ne misliti o pojedinim ljudima i pričama prikazanima na slikama. Jedna me posebno ganula -- fotografija sa ženama svih dobi, od bake do djevojčice, okupljenima oko djeteta, zato što slična fotografija moje obitelji, moje bake, majke i mene, novorođene kćeri, visi na našem zidu. Diljem svijeta, kroz razna razdoblja, naše su osnovne potrebe iste, zar ne?" Hvala. (Pljesak) (Pljesak)