Group Washing Precious Photos Damaged in Rain Disaster

August 16, 2018

Hiroshima- Yutaka Ito is leading a volunteer effort in Hiroshima to wash photographs that were blemished in torrential rain in the city and other parts of western Japan last month, including those buried in landslides.

A cardboard box filled with photo albums arrived in a photo studio in Hiroshima in late July. The albums contained pictures full of fond memories, such as a kindergarten entrance ceremony, of a family in the Mabi district of Kurashiki in neighboring Okayama Prefecture, which was hit hard by the rain disaster.

A group of five including Ito washed dirty photos one by one with water and calligraphy or painting brushes, and dried them, in order to prevent deterioration. When exposed to dirt, the surface of a photographic print is broken down by bacteria, erasing the image.

Dozens of damaged photos have also arrived from within the city of Hiroshima. In addition, Ito and his coworkers have received many phone calls from disaster-affected people inquiring about how to wash dirty photos clean.

Ito, 45, took his lead from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which devastated coastal areas of northeastern Japan. After learning about volunteer workers who cleaned photos of afflicted families, Ito obtained a manual on photo cleaning to prepare for a day when he might need it.

After Hiroshima suffered landslides in 2014, Ito contacted local high schools and others with which he had links through his work taking event pictures, offering to provide any support he could. He ended up washing about 2,600 photos.

One day, he was thanked for preserving the only family pictures that recorded the growth of a boy.

Many of the photos Ito's group is handling are pictures of school events or evoke family memories.

Ito finds the effort rewarding. "The work helped me renew awareness of how precious photographs are (to families)," he said.

"We are the last bastion for protecting the memories of families," Ito emphasized. "We must do this." Jiji Press