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Patrik Lundin is telling me what it feels like to be surrounded by an invisible danger: high levels of radiation. Lundin's photography project, 36 Views of The Fukushima Dai-ichi Exclusion Zone, explores the effects of the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant following the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. The work pays homage to Hokusai and is inspired by a series of woodcuttings, 36 Views of Mount Fuji, that the Japanese artist produced between 1826 and 1833.
Patrik Lundin
View 29 - 0.4 microsievert / hour
Patrik Lundin
View 5 - 0.1 microsievert / hour.
The project is a 180-degree dissection of the radiated land areas surrounding the plant. Each view has been taken in five-degree increments, looking towards the failed reactor. In Hokusai's woodcuttings every view contained Mount Fuji. In Lundin's work, the common factor is that each image contains levels of unseen radiation.
Lundin travelled to Japan in July, four months after the earthquake, and felt that his photographs had to go beyond the images of destruction that dominate the visual record of the disaster. "People have seen those images. They don't react to them anymore," he told msnbc.com. "What I am interested in is the aftermath of events, rather than the immediate."
Patrik Lundin
View 34 - 0.3 microsievert / hour
Patrik Lundin
View 23 - 6.6 microsievert / hour
Lundin, who is studying for a Masters in Photojournalism at the University of Westminster, spent seven days inside the exclusion zone, exposing himself to a total of 60μSv (microsieverts) of radioactive material. Although he was working in the 30km zone around the plant, where evacuation is voluntary (mandatory exclusion applies within 20km of the plant), he was stopped seven times by police who wanted to know what he was doing there.
"At times I felt a completely irrational fear over what I was doing to myself. In a lot of the zone the landscape is exactly the same as before - in most of the pictures you don't see the effects of the earthquake or the tsunami - but there are just no people. It's an eerie feeling."
Patrik Lundin
View 22 - 2.2 microsievert / hour
Lundin's work is on show in the exhibition Habeas Corpus: Bodies in the Frame, which runs at Ambika P3 in London from September 2-4.
Leave a Comment:
Looks like the vegetation hasn't been hit too hard in these photos. Maybe it takes a little longer for stuff to start dying off or something...
Environmental evidence of prophecy continually reminds us that these are the last days! Come soon, O Lord!
Where is your 'rapture' to save you from this ongoing assault?
Whack job
It already happened on May 21, 2011.
Sadly, he missed it. :(
there is no PRE-TRIB rapture...
the pre-trib rapture theory is a laughable theory... study the Word...
THe pre-trib idea leaves a person unprepaired... they believe that the anti christ cant show up on the scene until they are raptured out of here, and they cant take the mark of the beast because they will be raptured out of here...
what if they are wrong??? and there is a mark that comes, and they take it, thinking that it CANT be the real MARK of the BEAST...
now you are done for.... you bougt the lie...
His great noodely appendage has found us unworthy... :(
Jesus came to me in my sleep last night! He said, "Gather 40 million American dollars or we are taking you away."
So I must ask for the donations to be sent via Western Union to my address in Guatemala. If I don't get 40 million, they'll take me to Heaven, do you want ME in HEAVEN?!
Brokinarrow-Irradiated vegetation doesn't look any different. That doesn't mean it isn't harmful!
alexander Davis: Yes I want you in heaven and so does GoD.
oh lord, save me from your idiot followers.
@nel13 So You Pray to The Lord asking him to save you from his idiot followers, but you are praying to him. Think about it {if possible}. Now who's the idiot? It could be any time when you suddenly see millions vanish in an instant, and after that, as the Bible say's, there will be pain and suffering unlike man has ever seen. That's something we can't begin to imagine.
then again, it could be never. (and that is far more likely than a magic act)
Brokinarrow - these levels are not outrageously high, but not good. Background radiation is about .23 micro sieverts/hour. A chest x-ray is like 6 Sieverts - you wouldn't want to spend a week at view 23 - it'd be like getting 168 chest x-rays.
However, the plants would continue to grow if radiation was much much much higher. Plants aren't affected by radiation in the same way as a mammal.
However - more importantly, plants incorporate what's in the soil into their tissue. So those crops are now sucking up radioactive elements - if you eat them, you've now ingested radiation, which is much much worse than just being exposed to it externally.
Ah ha, good info thanks.
an X-Ray is about 6mSv! NOT 6Sv!
Vegetation seems to do all right in the presence of some radiation. You may even see normal-looking animals, but if you look closer, many of them probably have cancer or mild deformities. They may have stillborn offspring, etc.
I read recently that if humans suddenly disappeared, our radioactive remains would last longer than the time it takes for the earth to get eaten by the sun. We need to find a way to get this stuff safely offworld. If we could launch our radioactive waste into the sun, we wouldn't have to worry about it. Unfortunately, with our present technology, the rocket taking it there would be just as likely to blow up in the stratosphere and REALLY scatter the stuff around.
You sound a lot like my physics instructor!
Personnaly, I feel the permanent costs of nuclear energy outweigh the gain. Coming from the Pacific Northwest (USA-Oregon), I've seen tonnes of other options in action! The Columbia "River" (It's mostly a series of large lakes now) hosts more than 14 hydroelectric dams on the main stem with many more on it's tributaries, they crank out more hydroelectric power than those of any other North American river! In the past decade, fields of wind turbines have been put up, thousands of these spinning structures are producing electricity without the cost of permanent radioactive materials (noise pollution is always being fought about however, and how unsightly some find them.) Hopefully, improvements to the performance of these methods for harnessing the power of nature will come sooner! Learn to love the wind turbines!!!
there are other nuclear options, but none are in use now. fast breeder reactors, if used with fuel reprocessing, could burn off 98% of what we now consider nuclear "waste". and the remainder would decay completely in 300 years instead of billions. we can design to store for 300 years (especially if it is reduced by 98%), but to design for billions is not realistic.
BTW, the "billions of years" remnants would consist mostly of plutonium and unspent uranium.
Receiving 60 micro Sieverts is about twice normal backgroud of 57 in 7 days. Backgroud levels in many parts of the world are up to several times that of 57 in 7 days. There have never been any effects on human health at these levels based on decades of measurements. To say these levels will have genetic effects on animals or vegetation is totally unfounded. People need to educate themselves about the effects of ionizing radiation and not toss out erroneous statements that have no basis in fact
radman, I was thinking also of Chernobyl, although I didn't mention it.
the voles are thriving in even the worst areas with little ill effect, but their short lifespan probably helps in that regard, not enough time to accumulate a lot of damage.
appx a 2 year lifespan
This guy has got a big set of cojones (or limited brain matter).
I'll vote on the latter.
He went from having Ben Wah balls to Radiation Raisins
Looks like he picked up more Cosmic radiation from the plane ride over there than he did by being "surrounded by high levels of radiation". 60μSv (microsieverts) ??? Give me a break! A chest xray is 100μSv (microsieverts).
This stuff is scary. It's hard to believe no one can live there any more, and some of the area seems so beautiful. What a waste.
I'm with Styro, we need to find a way to get the nasty stuff off the planet somehow - safely.
Tired-of-hyped-fear, I'm glad to see someone is calling out the REAL facts. Don't eat a regular banana, wouldn't want to ingest the naturally occurring K-41 radioisotope in it. OMG! If I eat bananas I'm ingesting radioisotopes? Yes. It's the amount of the dose folks that makes the difference. The whole damn world evolved (or was created) [another argument huh] with the presence of inonizing radiation. Why do you think we can get an x-ray and not just wither and die? Because we can tolerate a certain amount. We all experience daily doses of ionizing radiation. It comes from the sun ladies and gentlemen. Our atmosphere blocks (shields) most of it for us. Bottom line, get an education and it would be real nice if the media and writers didn't use issues like this to ad hype or exploit the real story.
Amazing pictures, the photographer is one brave man! (But all this for a masters degree?)
He plans on being lowered to the bottom of the Kilauea volcano to take photographs for his PhD.
To Beefstuinit: 6 Sieverts = 600 Rem of exposure. That is vasty beyond a chest X-ray. Vastly beyond. A typical chest X-ray is about 150 microsieverts (150 millirem) of exposure. Just thought I'd mention it.
Did you see the symbol for micro? A micro means divide your comment by 1,000,000. He said he received 60 micro Severts, NOT 60 Severts!!!
Interestingly, exposure of 0.1 microsv/hr, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year = 876 microsv of exposure, which is 386 microsv above the federal limit for exposure to the general population (non-nuclear workers). 0.1 microsv/hr doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up.
Comparing a chest xray to continued exposure is like comparing getting punched in the face to a bear mauling you to death. I'm perplexed as to why folks want to compare a single event to continual exposure.
I agree this is just adding to the media hype, there is nothing there except at the plant (I have been there).
Here are some exposures for you to think about (Quoted from the Princeton University Environmental Safety and Health website ):
Conversion is 1 mrem = 10 microsieverts
So think about this next time you all light up a smoke!
Activity
Typical Dose
Smoking
280 millirem/year
Using radioactive materials in a Princeton University lab
<10 millirem/year
Dental x-ray
10 millirem per x-ray
Chest x-ray
8 millirem per x-ray
Drinking water
5 millirem per year
Cross country round trip by air
5 millirem per year
Coal burning power plant
0.165 millirem/year
Looks like some of the fish in the lakes are mutating into houses
So you're saying you've been getting nonstop chest x-rays for months or years at a time? If not, you just don't understand what you're talking about. It's not the singular exposure that's the issue: it's continual exposure. That's precisely the reason a guy can photograph something and leave with minimal risk.
Everybody thinks they're a scientist. Geez.
Well yall..I'm no scientist but I thought the pictures were a great repensentation of the area !!!!!!!!!!!!
The radiation levels should be accompanied by distance from reactors in each photo.
I agree. Otherwise these images are meaningless.
Here is some free advice Patrik , with no "c".
Just read the first part of your quote and do as the "Romans do"
Oh, and that "eerie feeling"your getting, that's your brain melting
According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the average radiation dose is 3,000 uSv/year (other references note 3000 to 4000). 2,400 uSv from natural sources and 600 uSv from man-made sources (nearly all medical-related). 3,000 uSv/year works out to 0.34 uSv/hr (3000/(365x24)). So I'm assuming the values with the photos are the increase in radiation above normal background. 'Light' radiation sickness has been noted at levels from 500,000 to 1,000,000 uSv.