Visual Storytelling Awards 2015

Kawah Ijen is a volcano in East Java where sulphur mine is situated. It is famous not only due to its unpredictable nature but also it is special in its kind because of spectacular phenomena called ‘Blue fire’ – seen only in two places in the world. It is observed by those braver tourists every night through the acrid smoke coming out from the crater’s walls. The place is characterised by harsh conditions. Quarrying starts every day at the dawn by locals. Those people work for a few dollars per day. They climb the dangerous steep rocky paths from the bottom of the crater to the very top with 70-90kg load on their virtually bare shoulders, then walk a few hours further down to the village. They do that deadly tiring walk 2 or even 3 times a day. That is what I came for, not for the “blue magic”, I wished to see their faces, understand their stories. The stories that their faces can tell me, their clean expressions in their eyes, the stories that can't be say in words..but seen If you see them and talk a couple of sentence in their language. Also due to volcano’s intensified activity in the last few days, I was half blinded and suffocated from the sulphur fumes, the pictures made me fully aware what I really had got from them. All that for a couple of cigarettes and a small kind talk, I could offer.