One of the effects of having spent weeks scrutinizing aerial and satellite photos for people wanting information about their homes, their families, their pets, is that I am now longer able to look at aerial photos of damage in the same way. It has become much more personalized. I experience it as a stripping away of a twentieth century attitude of abstract detachment, an attitude that the legacy of World War II and the Cold War encouraged.

A few days ago, Earthhopper (links: blog in Japanese; Flickr account) was testing out Google Earth's newly added images of Hiroshima and discovered an odd lack of clarity in the area of the Hiroshima memorial, the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome.

To correct this oversight, Earthhopper has used the same techniques that Shawn MacBride and the Google Earth Current Events community used to superimpose images of the New Orleans levee breaks upon satellite images, but this time on Hiroshima:

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb - Devastated Land - Google Earth Overlay

Image overlay of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome, taken in 1945.
The atomic bomb hit the city on Aug 6, 1945 and killed more than 140,000 people on the day, 240,000+ listed as of now.
earthhopper.syuriken.jp/places/kmzkml/hiroshima.kmz

And the other one . . .

Image overlay of Hiroshima taken in 1947 by US military.
The atomic bomb hit the city on Aug 6, 1945 and killed more than 140,000 people on the day, 240,000+ listed as of now.
earthhopper.syuriken.jp/places/kmzkml/hiroshima.kmz

Each and every one of those several hundred thousand people had a name and a face and a life story. We have been encouraged to distance ourselves from this kind of information, encouraged to be overwhelmed by it. But is that just the way we are, or is it a political construct of the twentieth century? Can we get beyond it?

It seems to me that this technique has broad applications in historical photography and in helping us forge a new psychological relationship with history. Imagine these images covered with thousands of those little red Google pushpins with names, specific street addresses, with links to family photographs, personal correspondence:

• "At that moment I was in the kitchen. My elder sister was sweeping the garden. Mother was changing Hiroko's diapers.";
• "When I reached my school, I realized that I had left something at home. Intending to go home, I went to the rear entrance of the school...";
• "When I was playing behind our house, I heard the buzzing of an airplane. When I looked up to see whether the plane was Japanese or American..." 

And surely somewhere in the US archives are the "before" pictures taken for planning purposes.

We have the technology to remember all of those who can be documented and remember them as individuals, not just statistics. All through September, I have seen it. I have used it. Those who die in masses no longer need remain anonymous.

(See also a similar collaborative process using WW2 recognizance photos from bombing runs, also involving Google Earth and Flickr.

And futhur to the subject of the politics of war and memory, read Gavin Grant's brilliant story "Heads Down, Thumbs Up," in Sci Fiction.)