Darren Nisbett

I found a lot of images from Chernobyl and Pripyat on the internet and in publications while researching my trip, images clearing showing the dereliction and effects of the elements on the buildings, the decaying interiors and broken posessions, these gave me a good idea of what to expect during my visit. Actually being there though is a completely different experience, the images that I had seen beforehand hadn't really captured the feelings that you get when you are there. I found that it was not just about the way the city looks, the worn concrete, faded metal and overgrown foliage, it's about the underlying knowledge that there's an invisible poison surrounding you, an unexplainable feeling, as though you are being watched by something unseen and ghostlike. At first you are not sure how to breathe or what to touch, eventually you almost get used it, and to the constant beeping of the geiger counter which follows you round like the ticking of a old grandfather clock in a haunted house. I chose to base this body of work on Chernobyl and I used my Infra-Red camera to capture an ethereal and haunting part of the city, invisible to the human eye. I use photoshop to recreate a traditional infra-red film feel where foliage takes on a weird glow and for me, captures the feeling of toxic radiation that still leaks from the entombed reactor. Prints are Silver Gelatine 10"x15"

Artist Statement: I am especially interested in infrared photography and the ethereal images that exist in the invisible colour spectrum.

Submission selected by Emma Morris, Photoworks

http://www.darkoptics.net