With Chernobyl by Pierpaolo Mittica, there are nearly endless questions that you can propose to yourself. Chornobyl is far better known than the Fukushima event, though even its history doesn’t stop photographers from venturing in. Mittica took to Kickstarter to fund this book, and those intrigued by the area can check it out. Stories like this would’ve been considered a bit unethical if this were simply just an urbex-style book. But Pierpaola has some real photojournalistic work to his name. Still, that doesn’t stop me from having questions.
Aesthetically speaking, Chernobyl is a beautiful book on the outside. The texture of the cover feels like a Jansport backpack that was packed fill with schoolbooks. That’s to say that it feels nostalgic to the touch. And when you crack the book open, you’ll treated to various pieces of text and also images.
Firstly, I sincerely think that the text should’ve been bigger or paginated differently as it’s a bit difficult to read. And for anyone who likes photo books, there’s a lot of important text to take in. Besides the text though, you’ll also run into lots of images. These photographs are stunning and only ruined by the fact that the book splits so many of the most gorgeous ones down the middle. Seriously, this book should’ve been printed square and it should’ve given each image its own page. This makes me a sad panda — especially because Pierpaolo made such stunning photographs.
The images include various urban exploration style images. However, Pierpaolo also encounters many of the people still living in Chornobyl after they decided to return when figuring out that city-life wasn’t for them. He shows off how so many of them live and what the radiation has done to them.
But he doesn’t only do this through images. There’s a lot of text that talks about how dangerous this photography project is and was. Yet, if you look at the images he made, you’ll be just as astonished and in awe. There’s absolutely nothing like this anywhere else in the world.
Chornobyl does a good job of also trying to further educate what the city was like before the distater. It explains that it is the birthplace of the Hasidic Jewish religion. It then goes on to show what life was like way back then. The contrast is stark. And one can only ponder what it would’ve looked like if the nuclear disaster didn’t happen.
This book contains beautiful images that will make you want to start at them for a while, but it sabotages itself by splitting so many of the best ones down the middle. It does a fantastic job of explaining what happened, what we’re seeing in the images, and how life was before the accident. And for the pure educational reasons, this is an exceptional book.
And here’s where I talk about the ethics of Chornobyl. If you were a photographer considering doing this for your very first storytelling job, I’d say that you’re nuts. Pierpaolo is pretty accomplished when it comes to telling documentary stories like this. I recommend that anything wanting to try this do not do it.
But if you’re looking at it from the place of being an art book, I’d argue that it’s a bit ruined. You can order this book now on Amazon if you’re still intrigued by the idea. We’re giving it three out of five stars.
