Thomas Attebery
Staff Writer
The Atomic Photographer’s Guild is a worldwide organization dedicated to capturing images related to nuclear weapons. Terry Ownby, an ISU photography professor, was invited to join the guild after showing his photographs of missile silos in Montana.
“I was struck by the high amount of human activity right near the silos,” Ownby said. “Most people I think don’t recognize what they’re living next to.”
Nuclear missile silos are marked and cordoned off by fences. However, there is minimal signage, and it is easy to understand how people could be oblivious to the presence of nuclear weapons in their midst; especially when viewing Ownby’s pictures.
“I find the juxtaposition really interesting,” he said. “It’s a paradox. I think people have become too complacent to these weapons.”
The title of Ownby’s photo project, which he hopes to turn into a gallery exhibition, is “Hidden in Plain Sight.” It focuses on the oddity of having nuclear weapons so near ranches and other homes, as well as in close proximity to the natural beauty and amazing geography of locations such as Yellowstone National Park.
“You have a highway that runs through Yellowstone National Park, Lewis and Clark National Park and Glacier National Park. That same highway goes right by all those silos. All the tourists that are traveling on the highway have no idea what they’re driving by. They’re clueless,” Ownby said.
The silos are also close to the some colonies of Hutterites, a German religious sect similar to Mennonites and Amish. Hutterites are known for their beekeeping, and one of Ownby’s photos shows a Hutterite beehive only a few hundred meters away from a silo.
The Atomic Photographer’s Guild, whose aim is to be a photographic exploration of the nuclear age, has historic ties to the birth of nuclear weapons. One former member, now deceased, was a Japanese photojournalist who was just far away enough from the blast zone at Hiroshima to survive.
He photographed the destruction to the city after the explosion.
Another, Berlyn Brixner, was present during the Manhattan Project. He photographed the first nuclear tests in New Mexico, and developed a special camera technology that could capture 1.4 million frames per second in order to take pictures of the first mushroom cloud blasts.
“I felt honored to be a part of this organization,” Ownby said. “It’s amazing to be a part of the same group as some of these photographers.”
Ownby shows the close proximity to missile silos by placing his photos side-by-side with an image of a map with lines drawn to indicate the distance between what he is photographing and the silos. He uses his experience with cartography and photoshop to give the sense of scale on the maps.
Montana is home to more than 150 missile silos located in a grouping in the middle of the state. Ownby, who used to be in the military, says there used to be over 300. Treaties between the U.S. and Russia since the end of the cold war have led to both nations decreasing their nuclear arsenals.
“When I used to go to Montana, it was very empty near the silos,” Ownby said. “Now there are all sorts of people around.”
Ownby will be traveling to Sweden to present a paper about his work at the Geomedia conference this May.
The conference takes place at Karlstad University, and two other ISU professors (Yolonda Youngs and Zac Gershberg) will also be presenting papers at the conference.
