On the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, I was asked to come down to the CBC offices in Toronto and do a live interview on Radio Canada International's The Link.
It was an odd experience as I'm used to actually seeing the person interviewing me, not sitting in a small booth with headphones on, waiting for a disembodied voice to come on and start talking to me. It was actually quite an easygoing experience and made me feel extremely comfortable, like I was in my living room, listening to some old vinyl records with my big old 70s headphones. That's probably why I babbled on so much and felt so at ease with the interviewer. You tell me:
My interview - rated one of The Link's top stories!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
We're Open For Business!
The show is up at Bezpala Brown Gallery and it looks amazing! 7 hours of hanging photos yesterday and we're ready for our first visitors starting today at noon! Some teaser snapshots from the very long day of hanging photos:
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| The Independent Women in their rusted iron frames |
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| The big reactor in all its toxic glory - 4' x 4', not easy to hang this one |
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| Playing around with some plexiglass mounting |
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The vastness of a ghost city
If you ever get a chance to visit Pripyat, thinking to yourself "I have 3 days - I'm going to photograph the entire place!" believe me when I say, you never will. The city is so huge and you want to have at least an hour per building to shoot something half decent. I think I would need at least 3 more visits to get a comprehensive photographic essay of this forgotten location.
Click the map to enlarge it (you'll need to - trust me). You'll see just how little we shot in 3 days on a private tour....
Click the map to enlarge it (you'll need to - trust me). You'll see just how little we shot in 3 days on a private tour....
Where did the time go?
It's amazing how fast time flies. In just 3 days we'll be installing the CONTACT Photography Show at Bezpala Brown Gallery that has come out of this 2 year adventure!
Just in case you were interested in seeing just how big the locations were that we visited, here's a map of the Chornobyl reactor and area - anything with labels indicating where we were allowed to go and to shoot.
Just in case you were interested in seeing just how big the locations were that we visited, here's a map of the Chornobyl reactor and area - anything with labels indicating where we were allowed to go and to shoot.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Remembering Vladimir Shevchenko
Russian filmmaker Vladimir Shevchenko went into the irradiated zone and was allowed complete access to film the workers as they attempted to clean up the destruction left by the explosion.
Wearing only a surgical mask - the same as most of the workers at the disaster - at one point he filmed the crash of an army helicopter while filming from the roof of the reactor, subjecting himself to lethal doses of radiation.
Shevchenko later compiled his footage into a film entitled "Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks" which was immediately suppressed by the Soviet government. He later died from the radiation he exposed himself to, although he is not among the official casualties of the accident.
These scenes were not included in the final cut of the film and you can see Shevchenko in one of them on the roof of the reactor with his camera gear:
Wearing only a surgical mask - the same as most of the workers at the disaster - at one point he filmed the crash of an army helicopter while filming from the roof of the reactor, subjecting himself to lethal doses of radiation.
Shevchenko later compiled his footage into a film entitled "Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks" which was immediately suppressed by the Soviet government. He later died from the radiation he exposed himself to, although he is not among the official casualties of the accident.
These scenes were not included in the final cut of the film and you can see Shevchenko in one of them on the roof of the reactor with his camera gear:
Monday, April 4, 2011
Chernobyl Disaster Documentary
If you have an hour, sit down and watch this amazing documentary about the Chornobyl disaster - with interviews with Hans Blix, Gorbachev, government and military workers, journalists, scientists, and Prypyat refugees.
We watched this documentary on the train out of Kyiv, heading out to Odessa to do some sightseeing after our big adventure to Chornobyl. It made me realize just what I had been walking through, what I had witnessed 23 years later, that I was now a part of nuclear experience in the Exclusion Zone. I don't think I will ever forget my time there or what I witnessed.
To this day, the term "The Liquidators" is one that I will always associate with radiation and death - even though these approximately 800000 young men were heros for going in without true knowledge of what they were getting into. The most heroic to me are the team of coal miners, who used their expertise to pump out the contaminated water to prevent its entrance into the groundwater. Although they were given suits and masks to wear, it was so dark and hot under the reactor, most chose to go in unencumbered by these ineffective security measures in order to work faster and breathe properly. They truly had no idea what working so long with so little protection under the reactor would do to them.
We watched this documentary on the train out of Kyiv, heading out to Odessa to do some sightseeing after our big adventure to Chornobyl. It made me realize just what I had been walking through, what I had witnessed 23 years later, that I was now a part of nuclear experience in the Exclusion Zone. I don't think I will ever forget my time there or what I witnessed.
To this day, the term "The Liquidators" is one that I will always associate with radiation and death - even though these approximately 800000 young men were heros for going in without true knowledge of what they were getting into. The most heroic to me are the team of coal miners, who used their expertise to pump out the contaminated water to prevent its entrance into the groundwater. Although they were given suits and masks to wear, it was so dark and hot under the reactor, most chose to go in unencumbered by these ineffective security measures in order to work faster and breathe properly. They truly had no idea what working so long with so little protection under the reactor would do to them.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Inside a Crumbling Nuclear Giant
The sarcophagus that entombs the remains of the Chornobyl reactor was built hastily back in 1986 after the explosion. It was a quick solution to an unprecedented life-threatening problem that could cross through Europe and into Asia, depending on how the wind blew. Plans have been underway to design and build a new, more permanent sarcophagus before higher levels of radiation leak out and threaten the workers, animals, land, and water. This Greenpeace video, shows the interior of the crumbling structure and daily maintenance required to keep it standing until the new solution is completed.
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