A Sea of Books
A sea of books litters the corridors of the abandoned old school building in Pripyat, Chernobyl.
A sea of books litters the corridors of the abandoned old school building in Pripyat, Chernobyl.
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Aug, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken inside a long abandoned school building in the city of Pripyat on a trip to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, Eastern Europe in June 2015.Time
This photo was taken in the early afternoon on a bright, hot and sunny summer's day in June.Lighting
Despite this photo being taken in the early afternoon on a bright, hot and sunny summer's day in late June, the building was long abandoned and it had not been maintained since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and evacuation in April 26, 1986. Barely any light was penetrating through the windows into the school building and the inside lights had not been turned on in almost 30 years, so the lighting conditions inside the building had a ghostly, haunting feel to it which I feel really adds to the atmosphere in the photo. A short exposure was all that was needed to capture a frozen moment in time in this long forgotten place.Equipment
I shot this photo on my trusty Canon 7D with an EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens, hand-held as there was so much to explore and we didn't have time to stop and keep setting up the tripod as we moved through the building.Inspiration
The entire trip to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was captivating and inspiring, and I really just wanted to document what I saw and take some moving photos that captured the atmosphere of somewhere so notorious and long abandoned as this. Seeing all the children's books discarded like this really impacted upon me, so I stopped to take the shot to try and capture the sadness of the scene and how this corridor had been frozen in time since the disaster.Editing
I did some HDR processing to bring out the full range of detail in the building, in particular the decay in the walls, ceiling and floor, as the lighting inside the building was quite dim and a single longer exposure could not really capture it without also bleaching out the shadows and ruining the feel of the shot. This is a HDR composite of three exposures merged together in Photomatix.In my camera bag
I only have on camera other than my iPhone 6 built-in one, which is my Canon 7D, so that's always on me, as is my EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens which is just a great all-round lens for landscapes and architecture. I also always carry at least one spare camera battery and multiple memory cards as the last thing you want is to run out of power or storage space when you're out on a shoot!Feedback
I found that when photographing abandoned place such as this, a few things are really important. First and foremost is your personal safety - always look where you're treading! There were a few times on this trip that I quite distracted by taking photos and almost forgot about the creaky, rotten floorboards and gaping holes in the floor, or bits of metal sticking out of the ceiling. Secondly, be sure to bring all the equipment you will need and don't forget anything as there is zero chance of finding a nearby shop that sells spare batteries or lens filters in a place that's not been inhabited for many years! And finally, always set your camera up to take multiple exposures of the same shot, because the chances are that abandoned places will be dark and have stark contrast between light and dark areas, so to really capture the full detail, take three exposures and merge them together.
