travel
Decadimento – Italian Decay
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 | decay, exhibitions, gallery | No Comments
Yesterday, I presented at the third Basel PechaKucha Night, taking place at Unternehmen Mitte. I was honored to be invited again after last year’s presentation about Chernobyl. If you don’t know what Pecha Kucha is: It’s a presentation format where a couple of people present 20 slides for 20 seconds each, resulting in a 6:40 minutes show. Great fun – go see one if you have the chance.
My topic this time was “Decadimento – Italian Decay”, where I presented urbex four locations from Northern Italy. Each of these places has its own history which I will explain another time with a full set. Enjoy!
New Urbex Photo Series: Mad Hatter’s Desert
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | decay, gallery | No Comments
In Summer of 2007, we went on a longer trip through Northern Italy. One of the places we visited was an abandoned brickworks plant. The workshop was a large area outside a small town, situated atop a hill. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the orange brick roofs were waiting patiently under the warm evening sun.
Photography by Sergey Maximishin
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | artists | No Comments
Sergey Maximishin:Rural Church, Aramus, Armenia
Sergey Maximishin’s portfolio, mostly from Russia, ranges from whimsical to bizarre, showing scenes of unusual everyday life. This is among the best photo works I’ve ever seen, simply stunning.
Chernobyl Journal #13: End of the Rainbow
Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | decay, hdr, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is the last part 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 that short excursion, it was five o’clock – time to leave. We went back to the bus, where Tanya had fun harassing Yuriy and the driver with feedback noises from the walkie-talkies:
Sound: Walkie Talkie Feedback Galore!
We picked up Laura and René (who had lost their way in Pripyat, but found back to the main street), and drove back to Chernobyl. The last location we visited before returning to the research station was the old shipyard north of Chernobyl. The rusty boats looked beautiful in the evening sunlight. It was hard to find a good spot to shoot them without having tree branches in the way, but it was a worthwhile location to visit at the end.
Chernobyl Journal #11: Music and Mirrors
Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | decay, gallery, hdr, project wormwood, sounds, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is part eleven 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.category.
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Leaving the docks, I went on to the cinema/theater complex to the north. In front of it must have been a large gathering area, probably with fountains, which was now a collection of concrete plates with yellow grass between them. On the side of the cinema, there was a large red-and-blue Soviet mosaic on the wall. Unfortunately, the lighting inside the cinema was almost absent, and I couldn’t get a good shot of the projection room (Beat has a picture of the room, I don’t know how long he had to expose in there!). Not surprisingly, its closed nature made the cinema one of the spots in Pripyat with the lowest radiation levels I had measured (<0.1 uSv/h, lower than my living room).
Chernobyl Journal #10: Pripyat Port
Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, sounds, travel journal | No Comments
This is part ten 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 seeing the school, I decided to go explore Pripyat port to the east. The port must have been a beautiful spot back in 1986. Located at the River Pripyat, a café with a round outside terrace overlooked the passenger dock, accessible via a wide stairway [that's how it looked in 1986]. From a ship passenger’s point of view, the city entrance had been through a gate flanked by the café on the left side and the dock’s tower to the right side, and V-shaped columns in the middle. A bus stop and ticket office used to be right after the gate.
Chernobyl Journal #9: The Other School
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is part nine 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 wandering around the hospital for two hours, I went back to the van, where our InterInform colleagues were waiting (the driver was busy playing handheld video games). I discovered some radioactive hot spots in the moss before the clinic which Yuriy confirmed with his Geiger counter. He then offered to show us “school #1″, another large complex just opposite of the hospital. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #8: Pripyat Hospital
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is part eight 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 spent most of the rest of the day in Pripyat’s north-east. The old Pripyat hospital was one of the biggest and most rewarding locations we visited. It consisted of five large buildings, about 6 stories high, all interconnected. The layout was rectangular so that one large corridor with rooms to each side lead through the whole length, flanked by two staircases at the side. In the middle of the buildings were open entrance areas, which seemed to have been used as common rooms or receptions. Almost every room was filled with medical equipment, from beds, cupboards, medicine bottles, autoclaves to whole operation rooms. › Continue reading
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
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
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