German photographer made his way inside the sunken liner "Costa Concordia"
German photographer Jonathan Danko Kielkowski made his way onto the hull of the Costa Concordia liner, which was wrecked in 2012, and took the first pictures of its interiors since then: when the coast guard let journalists on board, they were allowed to shoot only what was visible from the outside.
The photographer admits that being on the ship alone was creepy: "It's hard to explain. The first hours passed like in a movie, on autopilot. I was focused on passing, it took me two or three hours. You can feel the panic there. It's cramped inside, there are still passengers' luggage and their personal belongings left there."
The photographer has always been interested in the history of the Concordia crash, besides, 12 of the 32 victims were German citizens, like him. Therefore, when the ship was lifted and towed to Genoa before dismantling, he saw this as a chance. Access to the ship was closed, and when the photographer tried to get there, he was caught by the coast guard, and official permission to shoot could not be obtained.
The ship was moored 200 meters from the shore, and eventually Kelkowski reached it by swimming. He put his clothes and equipment in a waterproof bag.
One of the most sinister things that the photographer experienced on the ship was shooting the theater. The Coast Guard had installed lighting in the halls and workrooms, but the rest of the ship was hidden in darkness. To photograph the theater, Kelkowski chose a long exposure: so the camera was able to capture what he did not see himself.
Only when the photographer returned home and began to process the photos, he discovered a huge chandelier of screaming faces. Kelkowski found poetry in this and compared the shipwreck to an ancient Greek tragedy: the mighty captain considered himself a god and made a mistake that led to chaos, and now the choir screams shrilly on stage.
When Kelkowski returned to Germany and sorted out the captured photos, he decided to make an album of them. "Concordia" was published by the White Press publishing house, the novelty was presented at the book fair in Los Angeles. Although the book's release attracted the attention of readers and the media, for some reason the Italian Coast Guard did not react to it in any way.