Ruins revealed

Industrial ruins have almost become a photographic genre by now, photographers swarm over collapsing structures, especially in America and Eastern Europe to capture man-made decay and frequently taken over by nature. David McMillan's photos reveal all of this but his work takes it to another level.

The two hundred photos in the book concentrate on the effects of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl but what makes these remarkable photos interesting is that, starting in 1994, they have been taken during McMillian's twenty-two visits to the area and especially the city of Pripyat. By the nature of the place, it's a no-go zone and deserted except for officialdom and scientists though a few of the photos show some locals who still live within the thirty-kilometer Exclusion Zone.

By returning so many times McMillian has been able to capture the same buildings slowly falling apart and the natural world taking over. A good example of this are two photos on a spread of a bookstore with a partially collapsed roof, one was taken in 2011 showing the rubbish-strewn interior the other, taken in 2017, shows a mass of foliage totally covering the floor and growing up chunks of concrete and twisted strips of metal. Another spread with two photos shows a 1996 shot of an undisturbed swimming pool (used by officials and the military) but by 2017 the water was gone, tiles are slowly falling off the pool and nearby trees and bushes growing into the interior through broken windows. McMillian is particularly attracted to floors of a school, the kitchen, classrooms, gymnasium, kindergarten with their mixture of rubble, books, paints, toys all mixed together and in some photos almost creating abstract patterns because the items are nearly unrecognisable.

I thought the coverage was particularly impressive. general shots of Chernobyl, vehicles (and a helicopter) used in the clean-up slowly rusting, trees and other vegetation and of course many images of decaying buildings inside and out. There is an excellent illustrated essay by Claude Baillargeon about McMillian's many trips to the area, this really should have been in the first pages rather than at the back of the book.

The book's production is the usual Steidl high standard. 175 screen printing on a creamy matt art. A nice touch is having all the captions centred under the photos. There are five fold-out pages as well.