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IN MARCH 2011, the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl occurred in the Tōhoku region of Japan. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was caused by an earthquake and then a resulting tsunami. The devastating string of evens caused thousands of deaths. Three major hydrogen explosions occurred on site over the course of three days.
While the nuclear disaster itself killed no one, according to the World Health Organisation, officials imposed a restricted zone around the site. Over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the Fukushima Daiichi area.
Photographers Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression were on the ground in the days after the disaster, documenting the horrific events, but their more recent, five-year long project is a breathtaking series of staged photographs of locals returning to the “no-go” zone.
Their series, called “Retracing Our Steps“, brought locals back to their abandoned homes and local businesses, acting as normal as possible given the tragic circumstances. Below, see their striking work.
For this series, Bression and Ayesta wanted to answer the question: “What do the former residents think about going back to their ghost towns?”
“From the beginning we wanted to do something in between documentary and staged photography,” Bression told Business Insider.
Having been on the ground during the time of the events, they understood the delicate nature of this particular work.
“Trying to do an artistic project on such a sensitive crisis was really difficult but we wanted to show the area surrounding the plant in an other way than what we did when we were covering the crisis for news coverage,” Bression said.
“We shot all the pictures of this project in the evacuated area surrounding the Fukushima plant — in the cities of Futaba, Okuma, Namie, Iitate, Tomioka, Naraha, Odaka, Kawauchi, and Katsurao,” he said.
Subjects were asked to act as normal as possible within the space.
“The idea behind these photographs was to combine the banal and the unusual,” Bression said.
While beginning the project, Ayesta and Bression realized that photographing with artificial lights highlighted the desolation.
Preparation for this series took time.
“We went together on the fields in the no-go zone surrounding the Fukushima plant maybe three months (in advance before shoots). Each time the preparation was really long. In order to find the right place, and convince the inhabitant to go back there with us was quite difficult,” Bression said.
For this series, the two wanted to show what the “inhabitant has to face when they are coming to the place were they used to live,” Bression said.
“For different reasons, the Japanese government is putting a lot of effort to convince people to go back there. But most of the area has been closed for almost five years now and as long as the time goes by, it is more and more difficult for them to come back,” he said.
“That’s why we asked former residents or inhabitants from the Fukushima region, and in some cases, the actual owners of certain properties, to join us inside the no-go zone and open the doors to these ordinary, but now unfriendly, places,” he said.
In terms of the radiation exposure, Ayesta and Bression were not worried.
“If you live there, it can be a problem — but for photographers going there for only a few weeks, the accumulated dose of radioactivity is not an issue,” Bression said.
The two strive to stay neutral on the radiation debate. “We don’t want to say if we are pro or anti-nuke. We just want to illustrate the consequence of this kind of accident, and what you can see when you are going there is that for those families it is huge,” Bression said.
Their work also aims to remind viewers not just of the nuclear disaster, but the tsunami and earthquake that also ripped apart the area.
Bression reflects on the emotions his subjects might be feeling: “What happened to the area is really sad. It is really difficult to imagine what you can feel when you are forced to evacuate from your home without knowing when you will be able to come back.”
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The new Journal comments are a complete disaster. Huge Duplo style gaps fits about 4 comments per page and no red thumbs. I think this will damage thejournal. If I were to return I may even have to read the articles.
My eyes….. the goggles do nothing
I hope they remembered their lead lined underpants.
Great photos .I watched a documentary about this and from what I remember I think there is one man who refused to leave and still lives there . He looks after the animals that where left behind .he said he couldn’t abandon them ..
Suzie, that was Chernobyl. Everyone near Fukushima had to leave.
@Gary: no it wasn’t Chernobyl. . Joanna Lumley did the documentary. .
@Gary: no it wasn’t Chernobyl. . Joanna Lumley did the documentary. .
@Gary: no it wasn’t Chernobyl. . Joanna Lumley did the documentary. .
@Gary: no it wasn’t Chernobyl. . Joanna Lumley did the documentary. .
@Suzie Sunshine: sorry about multiple posts ..anyway. . It’s called Joanna Lumley Japan. . Well worth a watch .
@Suzie Sunshine: can u recall the name of the documentary?
@Oliver Cullen: Oliver it’s on tonight at 10pm on be3 .. Joanna Lumley , Japan ..
I wonder what has happened to the mortgages on all those properties. The insurance on all the goods…
Fukushima is a great media scare story: If one flew from Europe to the evacuation zone and stayed three weeks there, the biggest dose of radiation one would get would be from the background cosmic radiation on the plane flight there and back. Kerala in India has a higher natural background radiation level that the Fukushima evacuated zone. But the headline “nuclear power not really dangerous after all” wouldn’t sell many newspapers or get people to watch TV programmes.
The authorities TOTALLY over reacted. There was no need to evacuate so many people. The levels of radiation are harmless.
Radioactivity has been found in the waters off the west coast of the Us. Fukushima is still leaking. Robots have been sent in to investigate but break down due to the extreme amount of radiation. Fukushima is way worse than Chernobyl.
@Ronan you haven’t a clue have you? Not an iota. The seas are radioactive. You’re radioactive. Fukushima added feck all radiation to the oceans. Go back to school, you left too early.
@Ronan Gallagher: no Rogan this has proved to be false. YouTube thunderf00t will explain why it’s not the case. The only people that died in Japan were old people that were evacuated. Fukushima is just like chernobyl. It’s a big disappointment for those that still say nuclear power stations are too dangerous. It’s still the safest power generation system on the planet.
Ah William. I’m talking about high levels of radiation. One of the reactor cores has melted through the steel floor and is leaking into the sea. Robots have been sent in to investigate but burn out due to the high levels of radiation. The highest ever recorded.
@Ronan What does “high” mean? The radioactive material released into the oceans from Fukushima are MINISCULE in comparison to what’s there already. What causes those of you that are scientifically illiterate confusion is that some relatively short lived radioactive elements can be detected in minute quantities very far away. These short lived radioactive elements can only have come from Fukushima because they decay to non radioactive elements very quickly. However the dose anyone would get, including fish, is far less that the normal background levels.
You didn’t answer my question. You know nothing about Physics, do you? Admit it.
530 sieverts per hour was the latest released reading early February. Cesium 134 has recently been read in the waters off the coast of Oregon and also in Canadian salmon. Cesium 134 is the fingerprint from Fukushima. All of this info is openly available.
@Ronan I already pointed out that it’s a characteristic of radioactive elements that ones produced in NP plants can be detected the far side of the world in minuscule doses but so can a message in a bottle. The fact that you can detect it doesn’t IN THE SLIGHTEST mean it’s dangerous. Radiation in low doses is simply not dangerous. We live in a radioactive world.
The radiation levels from Fukushima outside the plant are not dangerous. Bar a few crackpots and the scientifically illiterate who write nonsense on web sites no one believes otherwise. Canadian Salmon already contain “naturally produced” Uranium, as do you. You have about 100,000,000 atoms of radiation emitting Uranium in your body + Radium and Polonium and lots of others. Does that bother you?
Are there any newspaper, magazine or independent journalists you believe or are they all crackpots? Where do you get your info about fukushima or have you been there and personally investigated the site?
@Ronan I only get and pay attention to information on scientific matters from Scientific journals or Science books. I’m not interested in the opinions of lay people or non-scientists. So the Daily Mail, the Irish Times, The lying Indo, RTE are out as are most newspapers and popular journals such as Hello. Unfortunately most articles written about scientific matters by non scientists are rubbish, biased, inaccurate, or are written by people with an agenda.
Start reading Scientific American or New Scientist and you will find that scientists do not expect a SINGLE death from radiation caused by Fukushima. I also recommend a book on radiation called “Radiation & Reason” (get it on Amazon) written by a Physicist and an expert on the effects of radiation on health.
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