Series<\/a><\/p>\n The Zone,<\/strong> 2011<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n “Everything here becomes visible. Everything can be seen, as if danger could add to the excitement. The period of desolation is past, and photography can capture the urgency and the chaos of life. Guillaume Herbaut prefers a style that is realistic without appearing to be naturalistic. It is a distinctive style: images overstate and intensify situations, imposing their own time signature. Nothing exists as it actually is. The photographer\u2019s job is to bring substance to what is real.<\/em><\/p>\n In the Zone, danger, as seen, has changed. It is no longer toxic radiation, but rather the squalor of the human condition which produces its own effects: victims of fate have disappeared, while the poor and wretched have appeared. Here, in the Zone, Guillaume Herbaut brings photography into the imaginary realm of the Russian novel, of a Dostoyevsky novel. As a photographer, he focuses on people, figures, faces, types. The Zone has provided him with the ideal setting to build his world of feelings: at a loss, conflicting hopes, in a world that can be grotesque.<\/em><\/p>\n As always it is the spaces between the images, together with the voice in his log book, that establish a world of legend. As always, Guillaume Herbaut creates a distance. His role might be compared to the position of a stage director who may find emblematic locations where the limits of human life stand out to be observed. This is far removed from any photo-essay intended to expose or even inform. There is not the compassionate involvement of the humanistic or humanitarian tradition. These are simply characters snared in their inextricable fate, as wretches.”<\/em><\/p>\n -Michel Poivert – Photography Historian<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> \u201cThere, in front of me, I can see the bridge covered in snow, the blue-tinged light at night, and wolf tracks. I have been in the Chernobyl exclusion zone for two days. I never wanted to go back. I had spent too much time there between 2009 and 2011, a total of four months wandering and getting lost in this forbidden land which had fascinated me ever since my first journey there in 2001. I am both attracted and repelled. There is fear of the high-contamination area. The Zone is now a place for me to stop and think. I\u2019m not interested in Chernobyl any more; I\u2019m not interested in what happened in the past or in the after effects. I just want to close my eyes and forget. But there, I can still see Piotr walking through the snow, about to cross the no-go area, to steal metal, contaminated metal. I can hear Igor telling me that he\u2019ll be my shadow. I can see Larissa taking off her clothes in the hotel in Ivankov: \u201cWhy do I do it?\u201d And I can smell the alcohol on the breath of the militiamen. \u201cWe were furious. If we\u2019d caught you in the zone and arrested you, we would have got a bonus.\u201d I can see Vladimir singing, and making me drink until I was sick. In the alcoholic fog, I can see a man being attacked, and hear the thud when his skull hits the ground. And I can hear my radiometer shrieking, telling me not to stay.<\/p>\n Chernobyl has been rattling my brain, making me lose my bearings, and even today it is still difficult to get it out of my mind. And there is the bridge, and the wolf tracks in the snow, the water, dark and deep, the Uzh River. I have to get away. One step too far, something\u2019s happened, I can feel the icy water biting into me, and realize that there was a hole beneath the snow. I\u2019ve hurt my shin. Nothing serious, just a scare. But this has finally proven to me that the journey has got to come to an end.<\/p>\n In 2001, Chernobyl made me change from black & white to color, from movement to a frontal approach. Basically I went from reporting to documentary work, which made me think about my attitude to photojournalism. In 2009, Chernobyl was an opportunity to contemplate a real situation as raw material, where I could drown myself, pushing on the sense of fiction, and getting away from a straight photo.<\/p>\n Over time, Chernobyl became a reference point, standing like a beacon, with a morbid light shining out.\u201d<\/p>\n -Guillaume Herbaut<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>
\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><\/div>\n
\n<\/div><\/div><\/main><\/div><\/div>Guillaume Herbaut<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/div><\/section>\n
![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/01ZONE.jpg\" "Larissa lives in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone 3. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/02ZONE.jpg\" "The main square in Pripyat from the Polissya Hotel , once home to employees at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The city was evacuated after the disaster in 1986, and is now a ghost town. Exclusion Zone. Prypiat. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/03ZONE.jpg\" "Naturalized deer from the Chernobyl's Zone in the restaurant \"the house of hunters\" in Ivankov. The city is just at 30 kilometers from the Chernobyl Exclusion zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/04ZONE.jpg\" "Room inside \u00ab the Home of hunters \u00bb. The city is just at 30 kilometers from the Chernobyl Exclusion zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/05ZONE.jpg\" "A dead man on the road to Ivankov. The city is just at 30 kilometers from the Chernobyl Exclusion zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/06ZONE.jpg\" "Hunting trophy: a wolf killed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on the wall of a discotheque in the village of Radynka. Zone 3. Chernobyl. UKraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/07ZONE.jpg\" "Friday night, leaving Antalis discotheque. Ivankov. Chernobyl Zone 3. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/08ZONE.jpg\" "Burns in a field around the the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/09ZONE.jpg\" "The cooling center of the Chernobyl power plant, near the blocks 5 and 6. For a long tiime, contaminated metals were stored and cut in this place. It is now abandoned. The radioactivity rate here is ten times higher than the legal level.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n
\n
<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/10ZONE.jpg\" "Piotr crosses through a hole in the fence demarcating the Exclusion Zone fo to go in the burial ground of military equipments in Razokha. A few weeks after the explosion of the power plant on April 26th 1986, here were stored in a hurry a few thousands of highly radioactive vehicles. Two or three times a week, Piotr goes illegaly inside the zone to find metal that he will then sell to the local collecting point. The rates are 90 kopeks for one kilo of \u00ab black \u00bb metal and 30 to 50 hryvnias for one kilo of non-ferrous metal (aluminium, copper and brass). (10 hryvnias = 1 euro). Chernobyl. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/11ZONE.jpg\" "A dead tree in the ghost town of Poliske, inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, once had a population of 20, 000. It was evacuated ten years after the disaster. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/12ZONE.jpg\" "TchernobylInside the cooling center of the Chernobyl power plant, near the blocks 5 and 6. For a long tiime, contaminated metals were stored and cut in this place. It is now abandoned. The radioactivity rate here is ten times higher than the legal level. Chernobyl exclusion Zone. Ukraine")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/13ZONE.jpg\" "A dead fox in the village of Staraya Markovka. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/14ZONE.jpg\" "An elderly woman suffering from cancer. Town of Bazar, inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/15ZONE.jpg\" "Burial ground of military equipments in Razokha, november 2009. Among the thirty helicopter stored there the day after the explosion of the power plant in 1986, only three remains, mainly dismembered. Chernobyl. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/16ZONE.jpg\" "Inside the Control Room, Reactor 1, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Exclusion Zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/17ZONE.jpg\" "A bat found in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The specimen is held at the research laboratory investigating genetic changes in the zone. Slavutych. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/18ZONE.jpg\" "The industrial section of the ghost town of Poliske inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, once had a population of 20, 000. It was evacuated ten years after the disaster. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/19ZONE.jpg\" "Pool table in the Activity center in the town of Bazar. Exclusion Zone. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/20ZONE.jpg\" "Diana (5) lives in the town of Bazar inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone . Her parents , Natalia and Oleg Touteyko, moved there from Kiev hoping that life would be easier away from the financial crisis. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/21ZONE.jpg\" "Igor, 45, in Chkneva, a partly abandoned village inside the closed zone of Chernobyl. After spending 17 years in jail for barbaric acts and murder, he\u2019s come back to live in the village where he grew up. His only activity is finding metal and bricks and selling them to local companies for a few hryvnias a week. \u00ab In summer, when the vegetation has taken over the place, we set the houses on fire so that the metal appears. \u00bb Chernobyl. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/22ZONE.jpg\" "Larissa Olexandrivna (48), one of the last residents of Poliske inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The town which once had a population of 20,000 was evacuated ten years after the disaster. A dozen people still live there today. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/23ZONE.jpg\" "Forest fire near the village of Strakholessie on the edge of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Zone 3. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/24ZONE.jpg\" "Teenage girl on the beach in Strakholessie, 300 meters from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Strakholessie has become a very attractive place for rich people of Kiev. Ukraine.")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/agencevu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/25ZONE.jpg\" "Ground detail in the abandoned pioneer camp near the abandoned village of Ilovnytsia. Chernobyl exclusion zone. Ukraine")
<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>