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
I love animals and It breaks my heart to see living animals like this one becones isolated due to human error....ahhhhh....when will these so called human beings ever learned????
In a poetic twist, the 1,660 square miles of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become one of Europe’s largest wildlife preserves. Local residents report lynx, wild boar, wolves, elk, deer, brown bears, bison, badgers, foxes, eagle-owls, and even Przewalski’s horse, a species supposedly extinct in the wild for some time. Given that the area is now heavily wooded and free of human predators, such a flourishing of wildlife should continue. Scientists, however, are studying the area's plants and animals for long-term effects of radiation.
Load More Replies...omg he's so malnourished! please tell me you gave him a lot of food, maybe he has others to feed as well
People giving him food is probably why he looks that way. his body wasn't made for our food and once he has a taste he probably stopped eating anything else.
Load More Replies...Wow, Simon is something living among the dead. Wonder how much of an influence Chernobyl's fallout had on the DNA of the usually wild and timid foxes. Gosh, my heart goes out to Sweet Sweet Simon.
The Ghost Town Of Pripyat, Ukraine
It's always been weird to me how Mayan ruins were just swallowed by the jungle. This is the modern version.
Man can live harmlessly among the Mayan ruins whereas Man cannot live like that in Radiation effected areas .
Load More Replies...Butterflies And Flowers In The Forest, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Its beautiful but everything there is still very radioactive and damaged :(
These are infrared photos, so they possibly are. Butterflies can see wavelengths we can't, and some of them glow to attract each other, we just can't see it. Flowers sometimes also glow to call insects to pollinate them.
Load More Replies...A Lake Within The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
If there was this much life on Mars and Venus that would be pretty cool. The infrared filter is creating the effect. I wonder if the radiation shows up with this kind of filter?
Look up Chernobyl current status. It has a detailed answer ;)
Load More Replies...Sure... swim in that.. this was created to dump nuclear waste into. As runoff.
Load More Replies...The Iconic 26 Meters Tall Ferris Wheel In Pripyat’s Amusement Park
What is even more creepy is too look up pictures of the Ferris wheel before the incident. It is hard to even grasp it being the same spot.
Its beautiful but I cannot help but to think of that zombie movie.
I started watching the Chernobyl diaries, thinking it was a documentary that turned out to be a horror movie, is that the one?
Load More Replies...The Monumental Trail With The Evacuated Villages’ Names On Either Side
See what human error can do....tsk..tsk..tsk...a painful lesson learned...
That's sad but kind of sweet, remembering the villages that got destroyed.
Bedrückend, wie der Gang durch ein Konzentrationslager....- alles wirk so unwirklich..
Bumper Cars In Pripyat’s Amusement Park
this picture is exactly the barrier between sad ,scary and beautiful at the same time
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.
Pripyat Sports Hall, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
If only its possible i will exchange this innocent people and poor animals to these so calleld human beings who have caused this disaster to be left alone in Chyrnobyl Ground Zeto and lets see what will happen then....
Some types of animals and plants are actually thriving in the exclusion zone. Scientists are shocked at the pace of recovery.
Load More Replies...I wonder if that isn't a very mal-nourished wolf. I would hate to think of a poor doggie out there all along.
The Bucket (Machine Part) That Was Used To Clean The Roof Of The Failed Reactor After The Fallout, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
I can tell you it wasn't shot with a really long lens (I'm a photographer). It could possibly have been taken remotely with a high end drone... If you were just saying you hoped he stayed safe, though, I couldn't agree more!
Load More Replies...I love the teeeeny tiny radioactive warning sign in front of it. That's a bit of an understatement.
because that teeny tiny sign will deter even the most determined explorer.
Load More Replies...“Duga” Radar System, Used As Part Of The Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Early-Warning Network
It's sideways. Weird. Artistic. but for those that don't know it, it's also a lie.
The Azure Swimming Pool In Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Abandoned Farm In Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
if you like this, you should play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl - you'll be walking right in these scenes!
Finished all 3 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games a few times already, but what the hell! One more time won't hurt.
Load More Replies...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.
so, that's a building, around a building... around another building?
Load More Replies...still dead trees next to it. a Disaster of the worst kind for it's lasting effects
The trees are not dead. This has been shot with infrared film. The colours you are seeing are not natural.
Load More Replies...Wrong. Steel and massive concrete are used nowadays and are as effective as lead.
Load More Replies...A Trolleybus In One Of Chernobyl’s Scrapyards
if you like this, you should play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl - you'll be walking right in these scenes!
Do you have any idea what a horror this was? It wasn't and isn't a freaking game!
Load More Replies...These are all because a reactor blew. The largest nuclear accident in history. I find it neither beautiful or neat. People died, the land will take hundreds of years or more to recover, if not longer. Animals in that area, are exposed to nuclear waste. Who knows what kind of dna and generic changes will occur because of this? People in those villages lost everything they had, some lost their lives or loved ones. Infrared pictures or not, this is not something to celebrate, or be awed over. This is a man made disaster, and it should never have happened. To find out why it did, is what is needed.
By the way when you look at The Zone now you can see that nature is doing quite well with no people there ;) They even found bacteria and some fungi that actually feed of radiation!
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.
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.
