The Value of Someone Else's Photographs

One day, Ben and I opted for photograph duty. Photograph duty is divided into two parts, washing/drying and scanning. Boxes of photographs, found in the wreckage, arrive at the Center. A team then washes them gently in water, attempting to separate those that are stuck together, and hangs them up to dry like a row of laundry on a line. Some people say this labor is almost as hard as rubble removal, because you have to lean forward over the washtubs in an awkward position. Dried photographs are taken to the gym, where there are two laptops with attached scanners. Ben and I helped to scan the photographs into folders. I was impressed with the thoroughness of the volunteers- any photo with even a trace of an image had been saved. I remember one in particular, a photo of a houseplant that had gone completely yellow. Only faint white marks showed where the plant was in the photo. I wanted to throw it away, but since another volunteer had already washed it and decided to keep it, I scanned it instead. How can one know the value of someone else's photograph? Maybe it was the beloved houseplant of a little old woman who lived alone. Maybe it was a birthday gift from a son to his mother- the mother survived and the son perished- all other photos of her son were destroyed, and only the plant is left. Maybe. . . while pondering the significance of the partially ruined photographs, I kept sorting them and handing them to Ben, who worked the scanner.

I once read an article by a foreigner who saw a Japanese woman cleaning the gutter with chopsticks. He was amazed she would be so thorough even in cleaning the street. Is it only in Japan that a volunteer would save a picture of some white smudges on yellow, scan it, label it, and put it in a photo album? Or is this part of the ethics of being a volunteer, not to make any judgements on value?