Photographer Gerd Ludwig has introduced a beautifully crafted and fascinating app for the iPad called The Long Shadow of Chernobyl.

Spanning nearly two decades of documentation, the app explores the human and environmental impact since the disaster, including photos from Ludwig's most recent trip to Chernobyl in early 2011, taken as the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant was unfolding.  

Chernobyl Children Project International volunteers who travel to Belarus will recognize a number of the young faces featured in Ludwig's photos. The app includes four photo galleries, 12 slideshows, and two interactive panoramas. Ludwig went deeper inside the damaged reactor unit No. 4 than any Western still photographer. He includes videos from the Chernobyl site, as well as footage from the Vesnova Asylum in Belarus.

I was particularly moved by the gallery called "Mothers" -- as Ludwig writes, "The brunt of responsibilities after any catastrophe often rests with women. Since the Chernobyl disaster, women have been left to care for their sick and disabled children as well as the elderly survivors, keeping their families together, often while their husbands have taken to drinking as they crack under the pressure."

In one shocking photo in the "Tourists" gallery, a woman poses for a photo in an abandoned radioactive metal bumper car in Pripyat -- a smile across her face as she ignores the obvious danger.

 

Adding to the context of the photographs is an essay by Eastern European expert David Marples, Ph.D.  Dr. Marples is Distinguished University Professor, Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta.  I've always found him to be one of the more unbiased and sensible sources of historical knowledge about the accident at Chernobyl, as well as the ongoing political, social, and medical consequences. The essay very succinctly outlines the major information everyone should know about Chernobyl, while avoiding interest group politics.

Ludwig funded the project through Kickstarter, a internet funding platform for creative projects.  He told us that this 20 year project has been a "labor of love.  I certainly hope the app will be considered a new and powerful tool to tell the story of Chernobyl."

You can find The Long Shadow of Chernobyl in the iTunes App store.
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