Ronald Floor – Shooting Chernobyl

Ronald Floor – Shooting Chernobyl – by Liam Sweeny.

RRX: It’s become a real passion for people to go to abandoned places to take pictures. In our area of northeastern America, we have what’s known as the “rust belt,” very industrial, very abandoned in places. You’re in Amsterdam. Where is the “rust belt” in Europe?

RF: Eastern Europe has a lot of structures left abandoned. After the collapse of the USSR, a lot of factories were abandoned and left to decay. In these countries, the former USSR satellite states, they have other priorities then to demolish the factories.

RRX: You went into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to take pictures. What kinds of things did you see that weren’t the same as other abandoned places you’ve been to. Was there anything that really drove home it’s past?

RF: I went to Chernobyl in 2019. You need to have permission from the government to visit the Exclusion Zone and you can’t enter the zone without an official guide. Normally I visit one building at a time, the zone is a complete city where you need multiple days to explore. You have lunch in the canteen of the reactor together with the workers that are still dismantling the plant and you sleep in a hostel in Pripyat, inside the zone.

The schools where everything was left behind made a big impression on me. They left all the beds and toys, like puppets and toy  cars, because they needed to leave in a hurry and they were told they will be back in just a few days…They never returned.

RRX: When you go into abandoned sites, you face the possibility of having the police find you trespassing, and, depending where you go, more than the police. Have you been anywhere that was guarded, or where you risked some form of imprisonment or capture?

RF: In Albania, I visited an unused military ammunition factory that was still owned by the military. I snuck in at night and explored till daylight. A couple days later I went back to explore the rest, but the place was crowded with military guards that time. Probably they noticed that someone has been inside. A couple months later I heard that 3 other explorers were caught there, and were imprisoned for 8 months.

RRX: Above all, you’re a photographer. And it seems at odds that an art form so focused on beauty can find that beauty in structures that have found nothing but neglect. What, in your opinion, is the “beauty” of abandonment. What do you seek to bring out in your photography of these places?

RF: I like the places that have been abandoned and where nobody has been for years but where it looks like people just left. I like the natural decay: the bladdering paint, the dust, structures being reclaimed by nature. It’s a shame that a lot of places got vandalized with graffiti or trashed just for fun. I try to avoid those kind of places.

RRX: Like I said before, it’s become a passion for people to shoot in neglected or abandoned locales. We have groups here, and those groups connect with other groups over shared interest. Is there a network of groups in Europe? What does that particular scene look like?

RF: There are a lot groups on Facebook and Instagram, and also Whatsapp groups with other explorers where they share information about the locations like where to enter the building, if there is a guard or a neighbour that watches the place,  but also to share if a buiding has been demolished.

I never share where the location itself is. Sometimes I spent multiple days searching the internet to find the location. That’s part of the hobby.

RRX: This question, I guess, is simple; have you ever gone somewhere you didn’t want to shoot because you felt it was a shame that it fell into disrepair?

RF: I come in a lot of places that’s a shame it felt in disrepair. Like palaces in Portugal, castles in France or Italy. But that are just the places I want to photograph! A lot of those places are still stuffed with furniture and other things. How cool is it to photograph a dinner table that has still the glasses on it, but is covered in dust and paint that falls from the ceiling?

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