A few days after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Fujifilm Corp. in Tokyo began to receive sporadic but desperate phone calls from survivors in the Tohoku region.
They wanted to know how to clean photos covered with mud and seawater.
When the enormous tsunami swallowed towns and villages along the Tohoku coast, furniture, cars and so many other belongings were swept away. Photographs were no exception, left scattered on the muddy ground after the tsunami receded.