HDR Pics - the most Popular Pictures you dig from my portfolio. Thanks again for the continued comments (good and bad).
Full story from the trip here - on the blog at Stuck In Customs
I spent the day in Chernobyl. One of my Kiev game dev friends hooked me up with a private tour, so I decided to go for the day to check it out. Every woman in my life told me this was a bad idea. Every man said it sounded awesome.
It was awesome, although I really usually fair better when I listen to the women.
Anyway, the day could not have been colder, but it fit with the milieu of the trip to Chernobyl. In case you don't know or can't remember, this is the infamous nuclear power plant that melted down in 1986; it was the worst nuclear plant disaster in the world.
I have taken a bunch of photos, but only had time to process a few of them. I'll post more in coming weeks and months, but I have pieced these together that show a good sampling of the day.
After I made it through the 30KM security radiation zone, where Will was detained by the military for not having proper documentation (a longer story which ended with him sitting in a military bunker for four hours watching Colombo dubbed in Ukranian), I was handed over to a member of the military who took me on a personal tour of the area. We passed through the 10KM security radiation zone, and then we were well within the exclusion zone.
I paid one of the military guys and borrowed his geiger counter so I could keep track of the RADs as we moved around. More on that later.
First, we stopped in Pripyat, a fascinating place right out of the Day After. Pripyat was built as the ultimate Soviet communist panacea, a place for Chernobyl plant workers and their families to live, go to school, play, and live their lives in master-planned bliss.
Pripyat was immediately deserted after the accident - kids left schools with their books still on the desks, families rushed out without getting everything, just complete and instant desertion. While I was there, it was completely quiet, and it was extra surreal with the early 80's styling of the Soviet buildings, windows ajar, stuff still sitting in all the windows.
First, from Pripyat, here was the shining star of the city, the fine hotel in its Russian splendor, now an empty, cold, and radiated husk.
Second is one of the large apartment buildings with a slowly rotting exterior. I could still hear shutters opening and closing in the wind.
Next, I went to the creepiest part of Pripyat, the playground and amusement park. This was recently completed just before the disaster. Bumper cars, swings, a ferris wheel, and other bits of abandoned toys now lay quiet and creaking in the snow. The second picture is another part of the playground, where the kids emerged from school for playtime.
We checked the Geiger counter because this area was supposed to still have a significant amount of caesium-137, which takes a good 300 years to dissipate to safe levels. It was around 0.054, so we decided to keep moving. Now we started heading for the main power plant complex. We stopped in something he called the RAD forest that had an old Chernobyl sign that was kitschy and interesting. 0.290 on the screen. He looked at me, "We should leave quickly."
Finally, I ended the the tour at the Chernobyl power plant itself. It was nerve-wracking, so I took a few shots then moved along.
On the way out, I went through three different radiation checks. Below is one of the military guys that was holding a geiger counter gun that he ran along the car and a few other things. I went inside to a special decontamination center and entered a device that looked like stripped down telephone booth / nautilus machine. I placed my hands and feet on special sensors. It said I was clean in some cyrillic word that may or may not have said I was clean. I looked at the military guy that escorted me in there and he gave me one of those Russian frowns and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Eh, good enough".
cibermakis, susan_r4, Stefano Prigione, TobTob, and 219 other people added this photo to their favorites.
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thebogmonster 67 months ago | reply
No offence.. your other photos are ace and I was transfixed but please don't take the mickey.
M J M 64 months ago | reply
Cool photo, great blog. I really dig this sculpture in front of the reactor!
DrHobo 64 months ago | reply
@thebogmonster: You'll find its HDR as in High Dynamic Range, Multiple photos taken in sequence at different exposures then overlayed.
This isn't a CGI image.
Hopes photos 62 months ago | reply
this was so cool
uʌ 59 months ago | reply
Industrial Archaeology Map would love if you put this in our group
Aeon6 [deleted] 59 months ago | reply
great story. very cool
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☣ bionerd ☢ 57 months ago | reply
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Radioactivity, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
tik_tok 56 months ago | reply
It does sound awesome.
OCDLibrarian 49 months ago | reply
Your photo's are awsome but what bothers me is that people think Chernobyl is a place to have fun. Certainly it's not all serious but I don't think you should go there just for fun
tonynikon 49 months ago | reply
Wow !!! I’d read a lot of articles concerning Chernobyl, and I think by far, this is one of the best! You explained with lots of details with a nice mix of a reporter and a tourist without being a political critic or a furious activist. I love the pictures because it represent the feeling of being there with great compositional perspective. Chernobyl looks like a gost town frost on the 80’s. I was on my Sophomore year when the tragedy happened and I could rememmber what a wordeful and terrible season on my life: Chernobyl, Challenger disaster, my first car, plans and dreams for the future and the list will go on…
Keep going!
Antonio Luis
Puerto Rico
d.isaza [deleted] 46 months ago | reply
OMG! you were pretty near to the sarcophagus!
I'd love to be there, great pics and great story.
roninrune 43 months ago | reply
The Hand Reminds me of Logen,s run. like how the Warehouse in the Background has a Cold Wintery feeling.
Martron Hux 42 months ago | reply
Great trip, great image!
I've seen a TV docu about that private trips, some months ago. Must have been very spooky out there.
jamica1 39 months ago | reply
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Science, Technology, History, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
Darvin Atkeson 38 months ago | reply
Great shot. Your image seems to have captured as somehow unreal cold somewhat alien feel to it. I can almost feel the rads pouring though the Flickr website to my monitor. Hold on a sec while I put on my polarized shades for protection. ;-) Very befitting cold image of possibly one of the most hazardous places on the Earth you can photograph. I trust you wore sunblock SPF 10,000 while there?
Thanks for posting this. I think it's important that generations don't forget what happened here. Especially now that nuclear plants are being pushed up as an alternative to greenhouse gas emitting power plants. Not sure I'd want one of these in my back yard.
Regards,
Darv
canonwithtamroneye 37 months ago | reply
Yeah very good colors here !!!!!!
madagenco [deleted] 37 months ago | reply
amazing story
David Gt Rojas 36 months ago | reply
Saludos desde Guatemala!!, hasta hace un año que supe exactamente todo sobre esta tragedia. Pues de lo contrario solo se escucha de chernobyl como un accidente, nada más!!!... me deja sin palabras y con tristeza.