Satsop Nuclear photography
Photography is hard mainly because of the fact that you need things to take pictures of. When I have free time I tend to go and look for cool places to take photos, normally meaning abandoned buildings. The cool thing about abandoned buildings is that there is so much to take pictures of while you explore. There are countless times where I have been somewhere that is abandoned and just constantly think about how cool the photos would be if I had brought my camera.
One place I’ve always wanted to go was to an abandoned power plant. These are really cool to me because of all the intricate catwalks and ladders weaving around everywhere. There is something that I just love about ladders in abandoned places, and most power plants have some that go very high. The past summer I got to go to one for the first time, except this one was nuclear. Nuclear is not as cool in the exploration sense, but it is equally as cool in the photographic sense. The one I went to was named WNP-3 (also known as satsop) which was an abandoned nuclear power project in the northwest united states.
Due to the massive size of this facility, and the rarity in which nuclear plants are abandoned, they had converted this plant into a training ground. We pulled up to the front gate and it was covered in do not enter signs but it was open. My dad and I looked at each other, then shrugged and drove through.
Immediately we noticed the training instructors begin to yell at us but we continued to play dumb and act like we could not hear them. When they finally caught up with us we were sent to the site overview office to get information on the site. Right when I walked in I noticed the steel-wool photography on the caretakers desk and asked him about it. After talking for several minutes I determined that he too was a photographer, and was told next time I came back he would let me into the restricted areas to take photos. All in all it was still really cool but I still really want to find an abandoned coal/hydro power plant.