Chernobyl Journal #6: Pool & School

Monday, May 18th, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, travel journal, video | No Comments

This is part six of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.

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We waited for half an hour for Yuriy to come back – he had gone to the security perimeter to report the looters – until we took up Tanya’s offer of quickly going to “school #2″. The school, one of Pripyat’s seven schools, was supposed to be south of Lenin square. We followed her through the woods around old apartment blocks, came across an old electronics store with lots of old TVs, but didn’t find the school. › Continue reading

Tags: abandonments, Chernobyl, hdr, photography, Pripyat, urban exploration, urbanexploration, urbex

Chernobyl Journal #5: Amusement Park, or: Why You Shouldn’t Wander Off Alone

Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | artists, decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal, video | 5 Comments

This is part five of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.

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Because of our group member’s different paces and interests, we were rarely at the same spot at the same time (which helped to keep people out of your pictures). At the Palace of Culture however, we all got together again. And while René and Laura were busy rising a new FC Pripyat from the ashes of the gym, and Beat was still looking for good spots to shoot, I got into a conversation with our guide who was standing in front of the van, waiting for us. › Continue reading

Tags: abandonments, Chernobyl, decay, photography, Pripyat, travel

Chernobyl Journal #4: The Buildings on Lenin Square

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, travel journal | 2 Comments

This is part four of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.

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After letting us get a first impression and pictures of the square, Yuriy showed us the way into one of the old apartment blocks. I must have accidentally wandered into the wrong building, because most of the rooms were empty – almost no furniture and no personal belongings apart from occasional books and papers on the ground. He also warned us not to spend too much time in these blocks, “not for physical danger, but for emotional danger”; as opposed to other areas in the city, I didn’t find the blocks especially depressing or unsettling, as they consisted of mostly empty rooms with similar layouts. › Continue reading

Tags: abandonments, Chernobyl, photography, Pripyat, urban exploration, urbanexploration

Chernobyl Journal #3: Red Forest and Pripyat Center

Saturday, April 25th, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, travel journal, video | 8 Comments

This is part three of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.

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Before going to the ghost city of Pripyat, our guide had some additional stops planned: Right and left in the empty fields small warning signs appeared, bearing the yellow and red sign of radioactive contamination. We were passing the highly contaminated Red Forest area west of the reactor. In 1986, all the trees were set ablaze by the accident – hence the name, Red Forest – and have later been buried in plastic wrap at special sites to protect the ground water. Once full of trees, Red Forest it is now a brown, bumpy landscape full of uncut grass.

The average radiation level in the field is around 50 uSv/h (300-500 times higher than normal) with pockets of up to 10 000 (50 000 – 100 000 times higher than normal). That’s where we stopped and got out of the car. › Continue reading

Tags: Chernobyl, photography, Pripyat, travel, urbanexploration

Chernobyl Journal #1: From Basel to Kyiv

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 | project wormwood, travel journal | 2 Comments

Two weeks ago, I returned from my photo trip to Chernobyl and Pripyat. Since then, I have been working on initial versions of the photographs for publishing.

When I put my pictures online, I usually don’t add a lot of text and history to it. In the case of Chernobyl however, having the pictures speak for themselves wouldn’t do the trip nor location justice – there is too much to tell about the history and ambiance; for this reason, I will make the travel stories part of the publishing process.

Over the next couple of posts, I will illustrate the text from my “Chernobyl journal” with pictures, audio and video. So put on some sturdy travel shoes, fire up the Geiger counter, and follow me. › Continue reading

Tags: Chernobyl, journal, Kiev, Kyiv, photographs, photography, Pripyat, Riga, travel, Ukraine, urban