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Chernobyl Shot With Infrared Photography Looks More Haunting Than Ever (Interview)
Infrared filters are known for creating weird, eerie, and haunting photos, no matter what you’re capturing. That is why taking a filter like that to an already creepy-looking place like the Chernobyl exclusion zone might make the scenery pictures you take look even more impressive. Photographer Vladimir Migutin did just that on his trip to the town in Ukraine that suffered the infamous nuclear plant disaster.
"It was a spontaneous decision," Vladimir told Bored Panda. "I was born in Belarus in 1986 (the same year that the Chernobyl disaster occurred), at the age of 5 my family left the Soviet Union. I have bright memories of my early childhood, and I wanted to visit some places in Minsk, to see how it changed since, and meet few friends that live there. Then the idea to visit Chernobyl came to my mind. I’ve searched the internet for groups that visit this place and have a valid entrance License. I had found an Instructor and a group from Belarus that planned a trip on an adjacent date.
"The only challenge that people have while planning such a trip is their superstition - that this place is really dangerous. After digging for some information on the internet it turned out that it’s not that dangerous at all. We didn’t visit forbidden places where the nuclear energy radiation levels are lethal. In fact, the average radiation level during this trip was pretty same as the radiation level on a 10,000-meter flight."
"It's pretty hard to describe the atmosphere I had during this trip and making this photo series, but it's as if I was in a “kind of” paradise - a feeling I can't recall since my last visit to Kokedera (Moss temple in Japan) two years ago. We always hear praises of the might of mother nature, how it renders useless men creations and bearing life above the ruins. Well, it's something that is always felt, but never on such a huge scale, and this place IS the place for these contrasts. 30 years after the fallout, while men are still away, the forests, the animals, the plants, it felt like everything is thriving, revived by mother nature. A bit pathos, but I really felt this way."
"For the UV and Infrared photography, I’ve opened my camera and removed the hot-mirror filter (the one which blocks the IR and UV wavelengths), thus turning it to a “Full-Spectrum” camera. Then I’ve ordered IR-Pass and UV-Pass filters to set in front of the lens."
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Simon – A Human-Friendly Fox, Whom Often Approaches Groups In The Exclusion Zone, Asking For Food
The Ghost Town Of Pripyat, Ukraine
Butterflies And Flowers In The Forest, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
A Lake Within The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
The Iconic 26 Meters Tall Ferris Wheel In Pripyat’s Amusement Park
The Monumental Trail With The Evacuated Villages’ Names On Either Side
Bumper Cars In Pripyat’s Amusement Park
The Rotting Grand Piano In The Concert Hall Of The Abandoned Town Of Pripyat
This image makes my brain to create a story about the mysteriously beautiful music that could be heard every day at twilight, before the night comes. The music embraces the ruins making the scenery of a beautiful tragedy. And the main protagonists exploring this place, trying to find out where the music comes from. They find the piano. One of the character tries playing it. And while doing so, everybody witnesses a sad story of the invisible ghost of an aspiring pianist who survived the accident. But his/her life won't last long, as he/she was diagnosed with cancer the day he/she enrolled in university, and died on graduation day.
The songs that have been played on that thing is what I want to know.
Unlikely to be rotting as fungi don't grow in radioactive zones. That's why there is so much leaf litter.
Beautiful retro facilities in amusement park. It will be great pleasure to spend time in a such place. And this photos are for me the most terryfing and make me sad.... especially there will be music, crowd, movement... but there is quiet. These photos shows the tragedy of this place but also how life is. Short, loud and... the end.
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Pripyat Sports Hall, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
The Bucket (Machine Part) That Was Used To Clean The Roof Of The Failed Reactor After The Fallout, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
“Duga” Radar System, Used As Part Of The Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Early-Warning Network
The Azure Swimming Pool In Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Abandoned Farm In Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
The Nuclear Power Plant Sarcophagus, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
That's not the sarcophagus, Its the new safe confinement (NSC) structure which houses the sarcophagus so the whole reactor building can be taken apart safely.
A Trolleybus In One Of Chernobyl’s Scrapyards
Huge thanks to Bored Panda for assembling this article! Huge thanks to you guys for your comments and interest! The album was indeed made and edited in the "Stalker" style, regarding how dangerous this trip - It's safer than most think... There are some areas that aren't recommended to visit at all (like the tunnels of death in Pripyat', where lot of items that were used by firefighters during the fallout are still scattered on the floor), but in overall, the average radiation level is pretty close to what we get on a 10,000 meters high flight, maybe a bit higher. If you pay attention to what the radiation meter is showing, avoid doing silly things - like touching radioactive stuff or drinking water from the streams, then this trip would to be a pretty safe one. In case you're interested in the full album (50 photos), then you can see it on my facebook page, or instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vladimir.migutin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vladimir.Migutin
That is eye-opening Vladimir. And it shows that living there before the accident was very little different to what we have in the West. I've often wondered why we persist with the standoff that exists today and has done since just after WWII. We are not all that much different apart from language. It is insanity to persist in making weapons that are offensive. Defensive yes, yes, I have no problem with that but offensive ? I think that is offensive. And I'm no pacifist! But these photos showed that living conditions and activities were amazingly similar to those in the West. We should be good friends, not wary adversaries.
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Of course, pretty much every place in Ukraine and Russia shot with infrared during the winter will be pretty damned stark ;)
It's not winter though. That is one of the interesting effects created by the infrared filter the photographer is using. :)
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Nature takes anything that used to be hers back so quickly. If it still wasn't radioactive place, I would've gone to live somewhere in the woods.
A photographic technique that certainly seems to manipulate the viewer.
These photos are truly beautiful, like they're out of a fairytale, but I wsh someone could evacuate the animals and give them proper homes, don't know what diseases they have to deal with and they clearly don't get enough to eat.
Radiation was bad but it got the humans out. Might actually look worse if they were still there building stuff up.
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I hope you fed that malnourished fox! It is human-friendly because it is starving and desperate.
Great photos, but it´s still so sad, on the other hand I once watched a docu on German TV about the wild AND domestic animals who´re thriving there, f. ex. there must be many now feral cats, bears, wolves and other animals, since there´s nobody there who hunts the wild animals the population grew a lot in the last years, oh and one old lady returned to Prypiat a few years ago, she raises her own vegetables in the garden, says she´s so old yet that the radioactivity couldn´t really do any harm to her anymore, probably she´s right....
Most of the levels in the areas that these photos were taken in are quite low. http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels/
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How can the area be deadly to humans, and yet dogs and fox seem to be okay, but hungry?
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/
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great photos! I always like this topic about the ZONE! I play Stalker game heaps. It takes me back to my childhood
Chernobyl is an amazing place to visit. Don't wait too long, the buildings are deteriorating rapidly. https://youtu.be/0UzZhDSBD1Q
Beautiful photos! Chernobyl is an amazing place to visit. Don't wait too long, the buildings are deteriorating rapidly. https://youtu.be/0UzZhDSBD1Q
These photos are so beautiful. I sometimes wonder if any of my family were affected by the tragedy. I could never find out if my mother still had any family in the Ukraine when it happened.
This is eerie, but absolutely beautiful. There's something about places that are abandoned that make them unique. Well done.
I wonder how this event compares to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. I've visited Hiroshima, and it's thriving city, today. Why can this Chernobyl region not be cleaned and used (except for the remains of the reactor, of course) ?
Tschernobyl had a radiation more than 200 times higher that the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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For some reason I know the layout of Pripyat all too well WHY!!!
so sad yet lovely as well God created trees and plants and they will be what cleans the air of this place
The incident wouldn’t have happened if they had had proper containment structures for the reactor
# relevant tangent# carbon dating is not usable for after the 1940s, 50s. "We" have added radioactive poisons to our biosphere with the atomic bomb tests. Nobody is able to tell how many mutations miscarriages diseases and early deaths of humans and all other creatures and plants are caused by this. Fact of life.
Radioactive particles and rays were discovered hundreds of years ago, it's not a human made invention in the 20th century. Sure, with the nuclear weapons and testing, it all contributed to the harmful radiation in our atmosphere, but the particles, and radiation (both the harmful and the harmless particles and levels) is nothing that new. What is relatively new is our knowledge about these things though.
Load More Replies...
Get the animal out of wilderness? Out of Chernobyl? What on earth are you talking about?
Load More Replies...
Huge thanks to Bored Panda for assembling this article! Huge thanks to you guys for your comments and interest! The album was indeed made and edited in the "Stalker" style, regarding how dangerous this trip - It's safer than most think... There are some areas that aren't recommended to visit at all (like the tunnels of death in Pripyat', where lot of items that were used by firefighters during the fallout are still scattered on the floor), but in overall, the average radiation level is pretty close to what we get on a 10,000 meters high flight, maybe a bit higher. If you pay attention to what the radiation meter is showing, avoid doing silly things - like touching radioactive stuff or drinking water from the streams, then this trip would to be a pretty safe one. In case you're interested in the full album (50 photos), then you can see it on my facebook page, or instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vladimir.migutin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vladimir.Migutin
That is eye-opening Vladimir. And it shows that living there before the accident was very little different to what we have in the West. I've often wondered why we persist with the standoff that exists today and has done since just after WWII. We are not all that much different apart from language. It is insanity to persist in making weapons that are offensive. Defensive yes, yes, I have no problem with that but offensive ? I think that is offensive. And I'm no pacifist! But these photos showed that living conditions and activities were amazingly similar to those in the West. We should be good friends, not wary adversaries.
Load More Replies... Of course, pretty much every place in Ukraine and Russia shot with infrared during the winter will be pretty damned stark ;)
It's not winter though. That is one of the interesting effects created by the infrared filter the photographer is using. :)
Load More Replies... Nature takes anything that used to be hers back so quickly. If it still wasn't radioactive place, I would've gone to live somewhere in the woods.
A photographic technique that certainly seems to manipulate the viewer.
These photos are truly beautiful, like they're out of a fairytale, but I wsh someone could evacuate the animals and give them proper homes, don't know what diseases they have to deal with and they clearly don't get enough to eat.
Radiation was bad but it got the humans out. Might actually look worse if they were still there building stuff up.
Load More Replies... I hope you fed that malnourished fox! It is human-friendly because it is starving and desperate.
Great photos, but it´s still so sad, on the other hand I once watched a docu on German TV about the wild AND domestic animals who´re thriving there, f. ex. there must be many now feral cats, bears, wolves and other animals, since there´s nobody there who hunts the wild animals the population grew a lot in the last years, oh and one old lady returned to Prypiat a few years ago, she raises her own vegetables in the garden, says she´s so old yet that the radioactivity couldn´t really do any harm to her anymore, probably she´s right....
Most of the levels in the areas that these photos were taken in are quite low. http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels/
Load More Replies... How can the area be deadly to humans, and yet dogs and fox seem to be okay, but hungry?
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/
Load More Replies... great photos! I always like this topic about the ZONE! I play Stalker game heaps. It takes me back to my childhood
Chernobyl is an amazing place to visit. Don't wait too long, the buildings are deteriorating rapidly. https://youtu.be/0UzZhDSBD1Q
Beautiful photos! Chernobyl is an amazing place to visit. Don't wait too long, the buildings are deteriorating rapidly. https://youtu.be/0UzZhDSBD1Q
These photos are so beautiful. I sometimes wonder if any of my family were affected by the tragedy. I could never find out if my mother still had any family in the Ukraine when it happened.
This is eerie, but absolutely beautiful. There's something about places that are abandoned that make them unique. Well done.
I wonder how this event compares to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. I've visited Hiroshima, and it's thriving city, today. Why can this Chernobyl region not be cleaned and used (except for the remains of the reactor, of course) ?
Tschernobyl had a radiation more than 200 times higher that the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Load More Replies... For some reason I know the layout of Pripyat all too well WHY!!!
so sad yet lovely as well God created trees and plants and they will be what cleans the air of this place
The incident wouldn’t have happened if they had had proper containment structures for the reactor
# relevant tangent# carbon dating is not usable for after the 1940s, 50s. "We" have added radioactive poisons to our biosphere with the atomic bomb tests. Nobody is able to tell how many mutations miscarriages diseases and early deaths of humans and all other creatures and plants are caused by this. Fact of life.
Radioactive particles and rays were discovered hundreds of years ago, it's not a human made invention in the 20th century. Sure, with the nuclear weapons and testing, it all contributed to the harmful radiation in our atmosphere, but the particles, and radiation (both the harmful and the harmless particles and levels) is nothing that new. What is relatively new is our knowledge about these things though.
Load More Replies... Get the animal out of wilderness? Out of Chernobyl? What on earth are you talking about?
Load More Replies...