In the day, Kawah Ijen looks like your average exploding mountain, but wait till dusk creeps in. At night, its sulfuric flames transform into stunning, ethereal azure pools and windswept fields of burning lava. On the active volcano near East Java, Indonesia, miners work by the electric blue light, doing their best to avoid flames that sometimes shoot 16 feet into the air.When the molten sulfur crystallizes, the miners break it, gather it, and transport it down the mountain for use in food and chemical industries. The conditions are treacherous, and many of the workers don’t have the right equipment to protect themselves against the toxic gas.
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Photographer Olivier Grunewald had been photographing volcanos for years when he discovered Kawah Ijen and the people who plan their lives around it. In 2008, he and filmmaker Regis Etienne spent 30 nights in the crater, documenting the night miners. The result is a strange, oceanic series of photographs and a 52-minute film, The Mystery of the Blue Flames, which was released this past winter. The stunning photos aren’t filtered or digitally enhanced—they simply expose another world, where people work amidst lava and fire looks like water.
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