Our first full day in the city will be focussed on the modernist, massive, and quite often mad architectural relics of the Soviet period in Ukraine. We’ll see the 335-foot Motherland monument; the UFO-shaped Institute of Information; the brutalist National Library; the space-age Kyiv Crematorium, and more—not to mention a fine assortment of colorful Soviet-era mosaics. In the afternoon, you can bring your laptop to our first post-processing session, where your photo leaders will share tips and techniques for getting the most out of your images. Finally, we’ll finish the day with a group dinner and drinks.

This morning, join us for an optional trip down to the drains below the city—a network of Tsarist-era tunnels near Kyiv’s old town. These spaces are cramped, but immensely photogenic, with colorful moss and mould, rushing water, and some brickwork sections more than a century old. Bring a tripod, a flashlight, and get ready to learn some handy light-painting techniques. If you don’t fancy the tunnels, you can stay topside instead for a guided street photography session in some of the city’s less-visited corners. There’ll be another post-processing session later, this time focussing on light-painting and night photography. We’ll end another exciting day with our customary evening banquet.

For the next four days, we’ll explore the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. This Chernobyl portion of the trip will be unlike anything else out there; we offer the flexibility of hiring a private guide combined with itineraries carefully curated by experienced photographers with an eye for the region’s most extraordinary hidden details. Today we’ll drive from Kyiv, enter the Exclusion Zone, and spend the rest of the day exploring largely untouched former villages before getting settled at our comfortable homestay. We’ll warm up here at the end of each day with home-cooked food and (optional!) potent Ukrainian moonshine. Keep in mind that our schedule during our time in Chernobyl is unpredictable, and subject to weather, local whims, and several other factors. These daily descriptions aim to give you a general idea of what to expect, rather than a prescriptive schedule.

Covering roughly 1,000 square miles, the containment area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant offers a huge amount to see and photograph. We’ll begin with some of the more typical sites, such as the abandoned city of Pripyat, which until 1986 was a thriving atomgrad. Schools and kindergartens, a cinema, palace of culture, swimming pools, river port, and a respectable selection of shops and cafés—all these amenities served the city’s young populace, by then numbering nearly 50,000 residents.

Today, we’ll take a tour inside the Power Plant itself, donning protective suits as we photograph the corridors, control rooms and reactor halls of the world’s most (in)famous nuclear plant. This evening, we’re excited about the rare opportunity for some night photography inside the Chernobyl Zone.

Today we’ll meet with some of the returnees. We’ll have lunch with people who live full-time inside the Chernobyl Zone, and learn about the latest developments, including Solar Chernobyl, a solar farm adjacent to the reactors. Later today, we’ll return to Kyiv for hot showers and soft beds back at Hotel Salyut.

January dates: Every year on Epiphany, Ukrainians celebrate the religious holiday by dunking themselves underwater in frozen rivers. Foreigners are very welcome to join in—or if preferable, watch from the sidelines with a cup of hot wine. Locals pour out in crowds for this event, so it’s a great opportunity for some candid street photography. We’ll mingle with the crowds beside the river all morning before warming up with a hearty lunch together. In the afternoon, you’ll have some free time to wander—a perfect opportunity to revisit some sites, check out someplace new, or simply sit back and relax. Your guides will be on hand to help you with tips and transport, or suggest new photographic targets for the afternoon. Finally, we’ll all gather back together for dinner near our hotel, to eat, drink, reminisce, and check out the photos we’ve captured throughout the day.

Non-January dates: On our last day together, we have something unusual to show you. We’ll head out in the morning, to a site in Kyiv that few visitors get to see. Be sure to bring your camera! Then in the afternoon you’ll have some free time: the perfect opportunity to perhaps revisit some sites, or see somewhere new. Your guides will be on hand to help you with transport, or suggest new photographic targets for the afternoon. Finally, we’ll all get back together in a restaurant near our hotel, to eat, drink, reminisce, and look at each other’s photos.