Becci Manson: (Re)touching Lives through Photos
In the wake of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, mixed into the wreckage were lost and damaged photos of families and loved ones. Photo retoucher Becci Manson, together with local volunteers and a global group of colleagues she recruited online, helped clean and fix them, restoring those memories to their owners.
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ABOUT Becci Manson
“Becci Manson flew to Tōhoku, Japan after the 2011 disaster, determined to help with cleanup and rebuilding. Becci Manson and her volunteer colleagues cleaned and restored hundreds of damaged photos.
As she writes: “During those 3 weeks of digging ditches and gutting homes I discovered vast amounts of photos that had been found and handed into evacuation centers. The photos were dirty, wet and homeless.
As I spent my first day hand-cleaning them, I couldnt help but think how easy it would be for me, my colleagues and my friends to fix some of them. So we did.”
She spent the next 6 months organising a worldwide network of volunteer retouchers, restoring these photos and training local All Hands volunteer teams to hand-clean the photos handed in to local authorities.
These teams have restored hundreds and hand-cleaned well over 100,000 photos. Since the project in Tōhoku, Manson and her team has begun similar cleaning and retouching projects in Prattsville, NY after Hurricane Irene, and in Binghamton, NY after Tropical Storm Lee.”
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