It ’s not hard to make the arctic beautiful . But the observatories , give up factories , and shipwreck disperse across its white expanse ? That ’s tougher . For landscape photographerReuben Wu , that was exactly the allure of the arctic archipelago of Svalbard .
Wu is a instrumentalist by trade — he ’s a member of the electro actLadytronand a disc jockey the rest of the time — and his achiever with music is part of what ’s enabled his vocation as a lensman to blossom out . travel the world on duty tour , he ’s been able to call in an unbelievable wealth of strange places — and shoot them , usually using his beloved Polaroid . “ On my change of location I ’ve been spoilt by the amount of stuff I ’ve been able to see , ” he state Gizmodo . “ And over the years I have become more and more pull to the dismal and obscure things which most masses have forgotten about , yet have their own aura of account and identity operator . ”
Among those “ dark and secret things ? ” The recollective - abandonedSea Fortsin the English groove , built during World War II to monitor Nazi aircraft , and dilapidate “ sound mirrors , ” an early , grim - tech concrete structure that concentrated well-grounded wave to detect radar . Wu sums up his motives succinctly , saying , “ basically , I ’m a weird rebel tourist . ”
Abandoned WWII - era Sea Forts .
In 2011 , Wu traveled to Svalbard , the collection of remote islands in the far north of Norway . Though it ’s been horde to dozens of temporary human small town over the 100 , it persist a largely uninhabited place . The principal lasting small town — Longyearbyen — supports a few hundred scientists , serving as a Qaeda camp for research going on elsewhere in the arctic . But Wu , in his own dustup , desire to search “ all the hidden things that normally go unnoticed by tourists . ” He confabulate sites like theSvalbard Seed Vault , an deoxyephedrine - encrusted bunker where scientists are amassing thousands of seed sample in vitrine of a cataclysm , and Barentsburg , an abandon Russian liquidation that still boasts huge statue of Lenin and Social Realist artwork .
Below , see a few of the highlights from the misstep . And if you want a creepily appropriate audio accompaniment , check them out while listening toJonny Cash read the classical 1907 verse form , The Cremation of Sam McGee , which secernate the write up of an arctic miner ’s ghost . For more about Wu , crack out hisFacebookor visit hiswebsite .
Barentsburg , the abandoned Russian settlement on Svalbard .
TheSvalbard Seed Vault .
The lookout station in the Atacama Desert , on the edge of the Andes in South America .
Science
Daily Newsletter
Get the adept tech , science , and culture news in your inbox day by day .
word from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
