When I first photographed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in 1994, I wasn’t sure what I’d find or if I’d be allowed to photograph freely. However, the trip proved highly productive and I was left feeling there was much more to see and photograph. On subsequent visits, nineteen so far, I’ve spent most of my time in the city of Pripyat, which had been considered one of the finest cities in the former Soviet Union. It was home to 45,000 people, mostly employees at the nuclear power plant and their families, but the accident rendered it completely uninhabitable. An unanticipated consequence of having returned so frequently has been the opportunity to photograph the changes taking place within this very unique environment. Nature has proliferated while the built environment has deteriorated, and this has become the subject matter of my photographs.
Email: davidmcmill@gmail.com
Web: dsmcmillan.com
