The scale and horror of the Chernobyl nuclear accident was brought alive in all its intensity by National Geographic photographer Gerd Ludwig through his presentation “The Long Shadow of Chernobyl” at the 9th annual International Photography Festival (Xposure) at Aljada, Sharjah on Wednesday.

German-American lensman Gerd Ludwig, who made 13 visits to the contaminated Exclusion Zone over a 30-year period to chronicle the environmental and human tragedy, narrated his story through pictures from the disaster zone in Pripyat in present-day northern Ukraine.

Ludwig stated that the accident which happened on April 26, 1986 in Reactor 4 in the erstwhile Soviet Union had triggered a fire that lasted 10 days, driving 250,000 people from their homes.

Ludwig, who covered big-budget stories for National Geographic on Russia after the fall of the USSR including the pollution of the Ural River, first went to the Chernobyl site on a helicopter soon after the Soviet government revealed the accident 36 hours after its occurrence. “I convinced them to fly closer to the reactor than was originally allowed,” he pointed out. He made further trips documenting the reactor and the graveyard of contaminated equipment.

“In 2003 for the first time, I was able to enter deeper into the reactor than any Western photographer dressed in protective gear with 3 mm thick plastic overalls, Geiger counters and dosimeters. I followed a group of workers that were only allowed to work a single shift of 15 minutes a day. We rushed through dimly lit tunnels strewn with wires and debris, and I had to be careful not to trip. The adrenaline rush was extraordinary. I had to make a meaningful picture in such a short amount of time, knowing that I might never be able to return to that space,” Ludwig added.

Working under enormous time and radiation pressure, Ludwig ventured deeper than any other Western photographer, repeatedly documenting the destroyed reactor, the ghost town of Pripyat that has found tourism potential, and the people of the region who continue to suffer medically and mentally. The clock that stopped at the time of the accident, the 92-year-old lady who has returned to die in her own soil instead of a hospital elsewhere, the sarcophagus or huge arch at the entrance to Chernobyl built with $2 billion worth donations from 45 countries, and nature reclaiming the devastated zone have all been captured by Ludwig’s lens.

“I have met so many people who were opening their hearts and minds and their meagre living areas just in order to tell the world that maybe they can help to prevent future accidents like Chernobyl. I see my work in general as a warning to human hubris that not everything that is humanly possible is also wise,” he concluded.

Organised by the Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB), Xposure 2025 came to a close on February 26.