The Nuclear Sublime
Inside the Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor sphere on the reactor floor, No 1, 2023
Inside the Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor sphere on the reactor floor, No 2, 2023
Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor Hall Below 14 Foot Floor Facing West, 2023
Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor Mortuary Control Panel, 2023
Window No 10, Irradiated Fuel Cave, Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor, 2023
Window No 6, Irradiated Fuel Cave, Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor, 2023
Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste “Product” Store, Sellafield, 2021
Pond, Chapelcross, 2022
Inside Emptied Pond, Chapelcross, 2022
Intermediate Level Waste Storage Facility, Chapelcross, 2022
Turbine Hall, Chapelcross, No.1, 2022
Pile Cap Crane Control Room, Reactor 2, Dungeness A, 2022
Pile Cap and Crane, Reactor 2, Dungeness A, 2022
Pile Cap Detail, Reactor 2, Dungeness A, No.1, 2022
Intermediate Level Waste Store Inspection Cell Turntable, Trawsfynydd, 2021
Mortuary Holes B78, Dragon Reactor, Winfrith, No.3, 2023
Control Panel, Pile Cap Crane Control No. 1 A, Sizewell A, 2022
Pile Cap Detail, Sizewell A, No. 1, 2022
Pile Cap Detail, Reactor 1, Torness, No. 2, 2023
Pile Cap, Reactor 1, Wylfa, 2021
Refuelling cavity, Reactor, Sizewell B, No. 2, 2023
Interior of In-Vessel Training Facility of JET Fusion Reactor, No.1, 2022
High Temperature Superconducting Magnets Cryogenic Test Rig, Tokamak Energy, 2023
Module for Central Solenoid, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, 2022
Interior of Vacuum Vessel Module in the Tokamak assembly pit, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, 2022
Accompanied by the launch of Michael Collins’ new book, The Nuclear Sublime, published by RRBphotobooks.com at the end of 2023, these photographs are a series of interiors made inside a range of Britain’s decommissioned and active nuclear power plants, as well as at fusion research sites in Oxfordshire and southern France. The photographic access was unparalleled, and collectively they cover almost the entire archaeology of the civil nuclear energy industry.
Conceptually, the photography addresses the contemporary sublime, a subject discussed by Michael Collins in his essay in The Nuclear Sublime.
The Nuclear Sublime is also noteworthy for the extraordinary degree of depth of field (extent of focus) in the photographs, which Michael Collins terms “sculptural realism”. This is also explored in The Nuclear Sublime essay, and is exemplified in his picture A Critique of Pure Photography, 2023, which is featured in another gallery on this website.