Like skeletal structures, welcoming us to enter them, we found the large halls where once workers stacked bricks in neat rows to dry them. The long shadows pointed east, while resting on old transport machinery.

Inside the factory, the deep, cool, and somewhat scary corridors of the ovens known as ‘kiln’. We didn’t enter them, trusting that the light wasn’t strong enough to fight the sleeping ogres hidden inside.

Up the stairs, atop the kiln, a wide desert of brick dust, occasionally broken by humble columns, symmetric compartments and rows of valves, like toddlers in blue and yellow overalls. Fields of regular, rusty, hat-shaped ventilation shafts.

Next to the brickworks, a beautiful old villa, overgrown by a jungle of precious garden plants. It must have been the residence of the owner and his family.

Finally, on our way back to the car, a sturdy little plant, triumphant in her conquest over a man-made thing, looked up from her sunbath, and waved us good-bye.

And here is the full gallery:

Having seen and commented so much of Dave’s work, I decided to dip my feet into abstract waters. I’d love to hear what you have to say about my first three pictures.

Exhbition homepage: “Industrieromantik” (until 14 September 2009)

Exhibition location: Ziegel Oh Lac (part of Rote Fabrik)

I really like Imagekind: The service allows you to pick the size, paper, canvas and frame of your print, the quality is really good, and they offer a 30-day money back guarantee. So far, I have used them for all my exhibitions and have never been disappointed.

In my shop, you can find 56 of my Chernobyl pictures, as well as 4 prints from the Autumn Leaves and 5 of the Corridor Country series. Check it out and let me know if you miss anything!

PS: If you want exhibition quality, I recommend Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl and Hahnemühle Photo Rag papers.

+++

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.

TV Shop (Album)

The driver picked us up on Lenin square (Yuriy was still gone) and drove us north to the old public swimming pool. It was a fantastic location featuring a great, multilayered pool hall with a big jump tower. Its roof was angled upwards, and the evening sun tinted the hall in a warm yellow through the enormous windows, which contrasted its otherwise blue hue. The pool itself was about 5 meters deep, its floor full of rubble, insulation material and remains of plastic chairs. The building also contained a gym hall with wooden floors.

Swimming Pool (Album)

Just next to the pool was “school #3″, a huge complex of two buildings full of classrooms and halls. Its entrance was barely accessible, it was so overgrown. In one of the classrooms I found an old school project about traditional clothing, pinned up on a wooden board. In the dining hall we found a large number of childrens’ respirators on the floor, their empty eyes staring at the paint chips in the ceiling like little grey elephant heads. It was an eerie teaser for the school we would see the next day.

School #3 (Album)

We spent an hour around the pool and school #3. But the lights was getting dim, and Yuriy was back too, so it was time to head home to Chernobyl before the mutants came out of the sewers.

After a stopover at the Chernoshop (an unspectacular room in a white building, mostly containing alcohol shelves and people in blue or green uniforms), we got back to the InterInform agency building. There, we checked our hands and feet for contamination (Beat had a little scare because the machine didn’t work when he used it), thoroughly washed our hands, and went to dinner. It was good Ukrainian food – lots of vegetables, along with rather fatty (but nevertheless tasty) meat. Unfortunately, it drove my stomach into further culinary culture shock, and I spent the night hugging the toilet bowl of my hotel room, while the rest of the troupe checked out the local Chernobar.

This is not the end, only the end of the first day. Stay tuned for day two.

Video: Small Contamination Control

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HYgK5i-8TE

Map of this Journal Entry

Chernobyl Journal continues in part seven.

Google Maps: Chernobyl Reactor

“Chernobyl”, which is Ukrainian, means “Wormwood” in English. Wormwood is typically known for its bitter taste and it being one of the main ingredients of absinthe. It also bears a strange biblical references to a star which, in an apocalyptic vision of John the Evangelist, fell from the sky and made the waters undrinkably bitter.

“Project Wormwood” seemed a suitable name for this project.

WTF? Why would anyone want to go there?

As a photographer, my main object of interest are places where man-made order collides with natural chaos: Abandoned factories, houses, military installations, hospitals, and other human structures that have been left to die. The activity of visiting and documenting such places is known as urban exploration of abandonments. It combines elements of archeology, art and extreme sports with a strong interest in architecture and industrial history.

Back in the 19th century, families used to photograph their dead loved ones (NSFW) shortly before burying them and keep the photos as memento mori; in a way, urban explorers take similar post-mortem photographs, albeit of buildings and structures, not people.

Chernobyl and Prypiat are, from an urban exploration point of view is a unique location for several reasons:

1. The former inhabitants of the surrounding cities left the area over night, leaving most of their houses as they were;
2. A 19 kilometer exclusion zone has been erected around the power plant, letting only authorized persons entering the area;
3. Nobody is allowed to live in the area (with some exceptions) for the next couple of hundred years.

All in all, Prypiat and Chernobyl are ghost towns whose existence documents one of the most significant man-made disasters in history. It’s also an urban explorer’s dream come true; and with appropriate safety precautions not that dangerous as you might think.

The Trip

We will be a Swiss-Latvian team of four, two photographers, one journalist, and a creative director. The trip starts next week and will take us from Riga to Kiev to Chernobyl – where we will spend two days in the exclusion zone with an overnight stay at the local research station (no, not camping).

Over the next few days before heading east, I am planning to post some background on Chernobyl, the zone, the planned visits, and the dangers of visiting this place. Stay tuned.

Photo Set: "Autumn Leaves"

Some months ago, my friend and fellow photographer Annie Bertram recommended to me to visit the  historic automobile cemetery Gürbetal near Bern. The area was originally planned as an open air museum for vintage cars from the 1940s – 1970s, but the owners (who dealt in used car parts) never realized the project. So, the car collection became a car cemetery under birch trees, which was recently used for a national art exhibition. Unfortunately, the area is now closed for environmental reasons, and its future uncertain.

My wife and I visited the cemetery in October, one day before it closed. It was an amazing autumn day, and birch leaves were covering the cars under the trees. I’m happy to present to you a photo sets called “Autumn Leaves” – it contains 34 color and 20 black & white pictures.