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.
Pred marcom 2011 som pracovala ako retušérka fotiek v New Yorku. Sme bledé, sivé tvory. Skrývame sa v tmavých miestnostiach bez okien a vo všeobecnosti sa vyhýbame slnku. Z chudých modeliek robíme ešte vychudnutejšie, z dokonalej pokožky dokonalejšiu, z nemožného možné a vkuse nás v tlači kritizujú, no niektorí z nás sú v skutočnosti talentovaní umelci s mnohoročnými skúsenosťami a láskou k fotkám a fotografovaniu.
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. 3. 2011 som z domu sledovala, podobne ako zvyšok sveta, tragické udalosti v Japonsku. O pár dní neskôr bola dobrovoľnícka organizácia All Hands Volunteers, do ktorej patrím, už v teréne a pracovala na obnove krajiny. Ako stovky ďalších dobrovoľníkov, aj ja som vedela, že nemôžem len tak sedieť doma, tak som sa k nim rozhodla na tri týždne pridať.
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.
13.5. som pricestovala do mesta Ofunato. Je to malé rybárske mesto v prefektúre Iwate, má asi 50 000 obyvateľov a je jedným z prvých miest, ktoré zasiahla tsunami. Podľa záznamov tu voda dosiahla výšku až nad 24 metrov a zašla viac ako 3 km do vnútrozemia. Ako si iste viete predstaviť, mesto bolo spustošené.
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.
Trosky sme odstraňovali z kanálov a priekop. Čistili sme školy. Vyprázdňovali sme domy a zbavovali sme ich bahna, aby sa mohli začať renovovať. Odstránili sme tony a tony zapáchajúcich hnijúcich mŕtvych rýb z miestnej továrne na spracovanie rýb. Zašpinili sme sa, a páčilo sa nám to.
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.
Celé týždne dobrovoľníci a aj miestni obyvatelia nachádzali podobné veci. Nachádzali fotky, fotoalbumy, fotoaparáty a pamäťové karty. A všetci robili to isté. Zbierali ich a odovzdávali do úschovy na viacerých mestách.
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.
Dovtedy som si ani neuvedomila, že tieto fotky tvorili takú veľkú časť osobnej straty, ktorú títo ľudia cítili. Keď utekali pred vlnou, zachraňujúc si holý život, úplne všetko, čo mali, všetko museli nechať tak.
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.
Na konci prvého týždňa, čo som tam strávila, som pomáhala v evakuačnom centre v meste. Pomáhala som čistiť onsen, čiže obrovské vane. Zhodou okolností to bolo aj miestom, kde evakuačné centrum zhromažďovalo fotky. Ľudia ich tu odovzdávali a v ten deň som mala tú česť, že som im mohla pomáhať začať fotky ručne čistiť.
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.
Bolo to dojemné a inšpirujúce. Stále počúvame, že máme byť originálni a tvoriví, ale až keď som sama vyšla zo svojej ulity sa niečo stalo. Keď som si prezerala fotky, niektoré z nich mali vyše sto rokov, niektoré boli ešte v obálke z fotolabu. Ako retušérka som si zakaždým mimovoľne pomyslela, že by som vedela opraviť ten škrabanec alebo tú roztrhnutú časť a poznala som stovky ľudí, ktorí by vedeli urobiť to isté. A tak som sa v ten večer cez Facebook opýtala niekoľkých z nich a do rána boli reakcie také ohromné a pozitívne, že sme to nemohli neskúsiť. Takže sme začali upravovať fotky.
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)
Toto bola úplne prvá. Nebola až taká zničená, ale miesto, kde voda zmenila farbu tváre dievčaťa, muselo byť veľmi presne a jemne opravené. Ináč by to dievčatko už nevyzeralo ako toto dievčatko a to by určite bolo podobne tragické, ako mať zničenú fotku. (Potlesk)
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.
Časom dorazili ďalšie fotky a potrebovali sme viac retušérov a tak som znovu napísala na Facebook a LinkedIn a do piatich dní ponúklo svoju pomoc 80 ľudí z 12 krajín. Do dvoch týždňov som mala 150 ľudí, ktorí sa chceli zapojiť. V Japonsku sme v júli rozšírili svoju činnosť do susedného mesta Rikuzentakata a severnejšie do mesta Jamada. Raz za týždeň sme zapojili skenery v provizórnych fotoknižniciach, kde si ľudia chodili vyzdvihnúť svoje fotky. Niektoré staršie panie nikdy predtým skener nevideli, ale keď našli svoju stratenú fotku, v rámci 10 minút nám ju mohli dať, nechať si ju naskenovať a nahrať na cloud server. Potom si ju stiahol gaidžin, čiže cudzinec, niekde na druhej strane zemegule a začal ju opravovať.
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.
Čas, za ktorý sa fotka dostala naspať k majiteľom, bol však už rôzny a závisel samozrejme od miery poškodenia. Mohlo to trvať hodinu. Mohlo to trvať týždne. Mohlo to trvať mesiace. Kimono na tomto zábere muselo byť viac-menej ručne namaľované alebo poskladané na základe zvyšných farebných častí a častí kimona, ktoré voda nezničila. Časovo to bolo veľmi náročné.
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.
Všetky fotky boli zničené vodou, ponorené v slanej vode, pokryté baktériami, splaškami, niekedy aj olejom, čo by fotky postupom času naďalej poškodzovalo, takže ručné čistenie bolo významnou časťou projektu. Nemohli sme fotku retušovať, ak nebola vyčistená, suchá a neprihlásil sa k nej majiteľ.
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.
S ručným čistením sme mali šťastie. Viedla nás jedna úžasná miestna žena. Je veľmi ľahké poškodené fotky ešte viac zničiť. Ako raz povedal Wynne, vedúci môjho tímu, je to ako robiť niekomu tetovanie. Proste to nemôžeš sfušovať.
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.
Pani, ktorá nám priniesla tieto fotky, mala šťastie, čo sa týka fotiek. Začala ich ručne čistiť sama a prestala, keď zistila, že robí viac škody ako úžitku. Mala tiež kópie. Plochy ako jej manžel alebo jej tvár, ktoré by ináč vôbec nebolo možné opraviť, sme mohli jednoducho skombinovať do jednej dobrej fotky a prerobiť celú fotku.
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.
Keď si od nás fotky preberala, podelila sa s nami o svoj príbeh. Fotky našli kolegovia jej manžela v troskách v miestnej požiarnej zbrojnici, ktorá bola ďaleko od miesta, kde raz stál jej dom, a spoznali ho. V deň tsunami mal skontrolovať, či sú zábrany proti tsunami uzavreté. Keď zazneli sirény, musel ísť k vode. Jej dvaja chlapčekovia, vlastne už nie sú takí malí, jej dvaja chlapci boli v škole, v rôznych školách. Jedného dobehla vlna. Trvalo jej týždeň, kým ich všetkých našla a uistila sa, že všetci prežili.
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.
V deň, keď som je dala fotky, mal zhodou okolností jej najmladší syn 14. narodeniny. Napriek všetkému boli tieto fotky pre ňu dokonalým darčekom pre svojho syna, boli niečím, na čo sa mohol zas pozrieť, niečím, čo si pamätal, niečím, čo už nebolo zjazvené z toho marcového dňa, keď sa úplne všetko ostatné v jeho živote zmenilo alebo zničilo.
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.
Počas šiestich mesiacov v Japonsku prostredníctvom organizácie All Hands pôsobilo 1100 dobrovoľníkov, a stovky z nich nám pomohli ručne vyčistiť vyše 135 000 fotiek, z ktorých veľká väčšina -- (Potlesk) -- z ktorých si veľká väčšina znova našla svojich majiteľov. Vyše päťsto dobrovoľníkov z celého sveta nám pomohlo vrátiť 90 rodinám stovky fotiek späť, a to úplne obnovených a upravených. Počas celej doby sme na vybavenie a materiál neminuli viac než tisíc dolárov a väčšina z toho šla na farbu do tlačiarne.
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.
Ľudia fotia neustále. Fotka nám pripomína niekoho alebo niečo, miesto, vzťah, milovanú osobu. Uchovávajú nám spomienky a sú našimi príbehmi, poslednou vecou, na ktorú by sme siahli a prvou, po ktorú by sme sa vrátili. Tento projekt bol presne o tom: obnoviť tieto kúsky ľudskosti a vrátiť ľuďom toto spojenie.
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.
Keď môžeme takúto fotku vrátiť niekomu takémuto, má to obrovský význam v živote človeka, ktorý ju príjme.
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 mal veľký význam aj v živote retušérov. Pre niektorých to bola šanca podieľať sa na niečom veľkom, šanca odvďačiť sa, použiť svoj talent na niečo iné než vychudnuté modelky a dokonalú pokožku.
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.
Na záver by som chcela prečítať jeden mail, ktorý som dostala od retušérky Cindy v deň, keď som sa po šiestich mesiacoch vrátila z Japonska:
"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)
„Keď som pracovala, stále som musela rozmýšľať o jednotlivých ľuďoch a príbehoch zachytených na fotkách. Hlavne jedna, viacgeneračná fotka žien od starej mamy po malé dievča, zhromaždených okolo bábätka, mi zahrala na citlivú strunu, lebo podobná fotka mojej rodiny, na ktorej je babka, mama, ja a novonarodená dcéra, visí u nás na stene. Naprieč zemeguľou, v každej dobe sú naše základné potreby rovnaké, nie je tak?“ Ďakujem. (Potlesk) (Potlesk)