Inside Chernobyl – 40 years of photographing the ongoing global nuclear catastrophe

Gerd Ludwig has spent over four decades chronicling Chernobyl through his photographs. On April 26, 1986, a nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine forced the evacuation of 150,000 people within a 30km radius. Nineteen years later, the now-abandoned school and kindergarten rooms in Prypyat remain as testament to the sudden and tragic departure. Gerd Ludwig became synonymous with Chernobyl; any mention of the place evokes his iconic images.

Ludwig first visited Chernobyl in 1993, seven years after the explosion, and initially, the assignment was meant to be a chapter in a larger story for National Geographic about pollution in the former Soviet Union. He traveled with an assistant, an interpreter, and a militia escort, arriving in a school bus. While Ludwig couldn't enter the reactor due to restricted access, he climbed onto the bus roof to document the surroundings.

The lack of entry only fueled his desire to capture more, so he returned later to photograph the interior of the facility.

Over the years, Ludwig's photographs evolved into a powerful narrative. In 2005, he returned to Chernobyl and published a 220-page book titled "Chernobyl 40 Years Later: No End in Sight," which documents the site from 1993 to 2026. The book captures the transformation of the Exclusion Zone into a popular destination for tourists, both disaster tourists and regular travelers.

Despite the increased attention and even the threat of war in 2022, Ludwig continued to document the ongoing story of Chernobyl, aiming to push the boundaries of his documentation.