How photography is used in the rebuilding of family albums and community after natural disasters. I am researching into these types of projects around the world as I would love to get involved with these types of support and community engagement after disaster.
Rolls Tohoku
The most compelling photographs to emerge out of the earthquake have come from ROLLS TOHOKU, a project started by the photographer Aichi Hirano. Soon after the earthquake hit, he visited evacuation centers around Tohoku, and distributed disposable film cameras to people of all ages who were sheltered there. They weren’t given any specific instructions, and after a week or so Hirano collected the cameras, developed the film and put every photo online. He repeated the same process in May and August of this year — the August photos were just recently posted to the project’s site.
The ROLLS photos stand out because they offer genuine personal insight into the situation in Tohoku. It’s easy enough to take a photograph of the physical effects of the disaster, but it’s more difficult to show people’s lives in an unforced way. The brilliance of the project lies in the complete trust and access. Sometimes the photos document really simple moments that have no obvious relation to the disaster: Many of my favorite photos just show kids playing around. Of course, other photos show the effects of the tsunami directly.
Photohoku
Another community photography project which started with the Tohoku Earthquake is Photohoku, a family photo and family photo album building project for those in need. They started working in Tokyo on a handful of photography related projects, like a charity shoot, an auction, a book, trying to raise money for Tohoku. Those first efforts, while successful, ran out of steam quickly. “Yuko basically got frustrated that it wasn’t really directly effective enough, and recruited me to go up there with her to do what we do professionally together in Tokyo, which is making family portraits. It was obvious to us that if people lost everything in the tsunami, it likely included their family histories in photos, and that was something we understood and could help with.”
They used instant photography, which would allow them to give photos immediately and it might also make it fun for the recipients. This idea quickly coagulated, putting the photos into albums, giving the families donated cameras so they could take photographs too.
“With the photos we made, we started a a bunch of new albums, had an absolute blast with everybody, and made a few really great connections. It went off unhitched, and we left with such an overwhelming sense of fulfillment and moreover an understanding of how severe the situation was and the mountain of grief and loss these people faced. It was humbling like no other experience in out lives prior. We instantly resolved to come back and repeat the effort as often as we could, setting a goal to continue at least for 3 years, which was the amount of time (since long extended) that people were going to be allowed to live in temporary housing. We secured a little sponsorship, we rallied our friends to help, and we became Photohoku.
Now its grown into an multi-national effort, with people coming from overseas to help us, as well as groups repeating Photohoku in other part of the world. We’ve also learned how anybody, not just those faces with natural disaster, but those with sickness, separated from family, faced with any kind of adversity, all can experience some kind of healing or solace from something as seemingly insignificant as a photo.”
How to help?
We had been hosting monthly family photo making events in the tsunami affected regions of northeastern Japan, called Tohoku. We reached our initial goal to continue our monthly efforts for 3 years which was the limit (now since long extended) for how long people we going to be allowed to live in the temporary housing there. The fact is that people still live there, but also that the situation in Tohoku is improving and people moving forward. So we’re scaling back (only slightly) our monthly visits to once every couple of months At the same time, we are ramping up efforts to use Photohoku’s success in other contexts and locations. Our goal is to have independently run chapters all over the world, with Photohoku ambassadors using our methods to help their own communities. Eventually we’ll get a starter kit for how to make your OWN Photohoku but for now, here’s what you can do.
1.) Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
2.) Watch our Pechakucha and TEDx presentations.
3.) Check out our other initiatives Photosayas, Photoklahoma, and PhotoPride.
4.) Download our free iPhone app and ebook.
5.) Check out our Amazon Wishlist for things we need, or send us a camera (contact us for details!)
6.) Send us a mail at Brian[at]Photohoku.org [ENG] or Yuko[at]Photohoku.org [JP].
7.) Get on our mailing list to hear about upcoming events.