Daniel Sato

Recently I began the task of scanning in all of my family’s old photographs. Digitizing decades worth of photographs is a daunting task for anyone, but then what does one do with all of these digital images once they have been ingested? Do you scan them in only to have them sit in a folder on a hard drive, just as inaccessible as when they were in a box in the closet?

For my purposes, I decided to used Flickr to create and manage my family’s photo archive. Now, as you know, one downside of Flickr is that users are only allowed to display the 200 most recent images/videos if they have a free account (which I do).

However, I was able to get around this, and actually make my archive much, much more functional, by creating a Flickr group as well. As you can see, the group currently has 400+ images in its pool, well over the 200 image limit of a free account.

Another major plus to using a Flickr group for your photo archive is the About/Group Description area. This area lets you write a description of your group with the option to include some html. It is the html that makes this so useful, as I can include links to tags for dates, locations, people, etc. Sure you could just search for tags with the search bar at the top, but that assumes you know which tags are in use. It also assumes that you know how to use the search bar (and will search for photos/tags within the group and not, say, in all of Flickr or in your own photostream) which is not a given when you are trying to share the archive with some less computer savvy relatives.

Lastly, you can’t tell, but I did not change the names of my images. They have been set to be numbered sequentially as they are scanned in. I then write the range of numbers on the envelop of the physical once they photos have been scanned and placed back in the envelop for storage. That way, if ever someone wants a print of a particular image, or for some reason needs a high-resolution scan, I can simply view the image number and find the proper envelop (they are being stored sequentially as I finish each one) to access the correct photograph.

As any of my high school friends can tell you, I have never been the most connected person to the Japanese American community. While I did intern at the Rafu Shimpo, I didn’t go to the local temple or church, join the asian Boy Scout troop, or do other things that would put me in touch with many other Japanese Americans. My only strong connections with the community were through asian basketball leagues and the yearly Venice Japanese Community Center festival (I’ve only made it to the WLA obon once and the Venice obon twice).

Each year that I go back I run into someone from my past. A former math teacher, basketball coach, teammate … the festival is my real-life Facebook when reconnecting with the JA community.

It was with great pleasure, then, that I was able to volunteer my time and help document this past festival, held on Saturday, June 20 – Sunday June 21. The photos will eventually be incorporated into a DVD that will be used in fundraising efforts for the expansion of the community center.

This time a year ago I was packing my bags, preparing both for my first “real job” and for my first real winter.  In twelve months time I have gone both halfway across the United States and back, and halfway across the world and back.  I have lived through the coldest of winters and a land in which winter does not exist.

In arriving at Green School, I thought I had landed a dream job, documenting the building and subsequent opening of a school whose ideals and concepts I believed in.  Sustainable architecture/living.  Holistic learning.  Compost toilets.  Embracing local customs and culture.  All of these aspects of Green School made doing what amounts to PR work all the more bearable.  As Ryan Sholin wrote when talking about alternatives to mainstream journalism, “Is that something like PR?  Maybe, but if you love the work they do, isn’t this a bit of a shortcut to saving the world?”

Unfortunately, things are seldom as good as they look on paper (Exhibit A: I give you the 2003-2004 Los Angeles Lakers).  I will not get into the details of why I left the school, because I think there is still a reasonable chance that things there can turn around and at least a portion of their dream can be realized.  Suffice it to say, I was not the only one to go.

Even if things had been perfect, I often wonder if I could have stayed any longer than a year.  While it was indeed a project that I believed in, I left Des Moines in hopes of delving into more long-form storytelling, and taking photographs of schoolchildren day in and day out was definitely not that.  That is not to say that I regret any of my decisions.  I did, in fact, live in Bali for six months, and that alone was almost reason enough to have gone.  I met an extraordinary group of people, both locals and westerners, come across interesting stories, and perhaps even have lined up potential work if I do return.  I also learned that I need to work in a job/activity related to journalism.  For now, playing on the beach and motorbiking down crowded streets is not enough.  So all was not for naught.

As for what lies next.  That should flush itself out over the next month.  Know anyone that needs a young, enthusiastic visual journalist?

Green School officially opened on Monday, September 1, 2008 and I must say, it was quite… not magical, but definitely inspiring, to see all of the kids in the classrooms, bringing to life what the day before had just been empty spaces and bare mud floors… and to hear the responses from children who went to sleep early just so that they could wake up and go to school.

Click the photo to view the gallery: