The Chernobyl exclusion zone might seem like a time capsule of the fateful day in 1986 when reactor No. 4 blew its lid and sent clouds of radiation across Europe. But Pierpaolo Mittica knows Chernobyl is far from frozen in time: The Italian photographer has been documenting the changing landscape of the disaster site for decades. His images reveal an expanse that is neither devoid of life nor static—illustrated by moments like when forest fire smoke billows above the ghost town of Pripyat. 

“We are just at the beginning of the story of Chernobyl,” Mittica said.  

PIERPAOLO MITTICA 

JAMES P. BLAIR

Thanks to the late botanist Peter Raven, lush, vibrant plants and aromatic flowers dot the paths of the Missouri Botanical Garden and it's a major player in advancing plant science.

National Geographic profiled him in 1990. For the feature, photographer James P. Blair traveled from the depths of Ecuador’s tropical rain forests back to the Midwest to document the plants Raven’s team were racing to save and what their leading research meant back home.

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