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The Sarcophagus’s Labyrinth: Photographing the unseen parts of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant  

It’s been nearly 10 years since I first visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was a great experience for me. I could finally see the place I’d previously only known from books and TV and the tart taste of the Lugol’s iodine I had to drink a few days after the disaster. After many visits to the plant, I was finally even allowed to enter the damaged Reactor 4 and see the notorious control room. It was here that the failed experiment resulting in the reactor exploding and the uncontrolled emission into the atmosphere of terabecquerels of radioactive isotopes was conducted. A decade ago, obtaining the necessary permits to see the epicenter of the events of April 1986 was extremely arduous and complicated. Today, this place is a must-see on most tourist excursions.

Today I return once again to the plant. This time, I want to see new places that I haven’t yet photographed. When I got permission after several months of efforts, sending letters and making phone calls, I was very excited. As one of the staff members in charge of my visit said, I had been granted exclusive access to the nuclear power plant. I can’t wait to find out what this actually means. So, I will be spending the next two days taking photos that I hope to use in the next HALF-LIFE album. It probably won’t be done any time soon, so in the meantime I’ll share with you my thoughts about my visit to the power plant and tell you what it was like to photograph it. But, who knows, maybe 10 years from now, you’ll be able to see these places with your own eyes.

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Sarcophagus and other most radioactive places in Chernobyl

It’s been 3 years since the giant, more than 36 000-ton New Safe Confinement, better known as the Arch, was put over the old sarcophagus, which was damaged and collapsing. In a way, this symbolic moment also summed up my 10 years of work documenting the Chernobyl Zone, which result in the release of the photo album HALF-LIFE: from Chernobyl to Fukushima. However, just as the building of the new sarcophagus did not finish the work inside related to eliminating the radioactive threat, I still have a reason to come here. This time, I was taking advantage of the fact that in July of this year the French contractor transferred the Arch to its owner, i.e. the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, I sought permission to enter and photograph this gigantic structure.

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“Chernobyl” writer asks tourists to respect the site after nude photo shoots in Pripyat [NSFW]

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Shortly after it was first aired, TV series Chernobyl took the world by storm. Expectedly, its enormous popularity has taken even more tourists to already quite visited abandoned town of Pripyat. One Instagrammer even set a nude photo shoot at the nuclear disaster site. So, Chernobyl writer, Craig Mazin, recently publicly asked people to respect the site and remember that it was a place of tragedy.

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My visit to Chernobyl and the abandoned city of Pripyat

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Before you read the rest of the article, and it will be a long read, please allow me to share a few thoughts with you. Visiting the abandoned city of Pripyat and the disaster site of Chernobyl was an experience that I was looking forward to for a very long time.

While I was there I had many mixed feelings. On one hand I was having laughs with my friends and found everything ‘amazingly beautiful’ to shoot, while on the other hand I realized I was in and nearby the place where the world’s worst nuclear disaster happened. A place of sadness and death.

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Check Out This Apocolyptic Footage Of Chernobyl Taken From A Drone’s Eye View

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Almost 30 years after the tragic explosion in Chernobyl, a film crew and correspondants for CBS visited the site to work on a story detailing the cataclysmic event. As part of the crew, filmmaker and photographer, Danny Cooke, was granted access to the site for a week long exploration. Cooke seized the opportunity to create a short film which documents Chernobyl from the perspective of his Phantom DJI 2. Equipped with a GoPro3+, Canon 7D, a guide, and dosimeter geiger counter to keep tabs on radiation levels, Cooke set out to capture the footage which you can see below.[Read More…]

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