Another active volcano

Another active volcanic area in Indonesia is Kawah Ijen (Ijen Crater). The crater lake is a beautiful, otherworldly green, and sulfur dioxide smoke erupts from one end of it. Workers with gas masks use metal poles to break through the crust to allow molten sulfur to ooze out and solidify, and then other men carry the approximately 180 to 200 pounds of sulfur rocks up the 600-foot cliff face and then down the mountain to waiting trucks. For this Herculean effort, they make about $5/load. I borrowed a gas mask to go into the noxious smoke to photograph two workers, and even with the mask I was choking in about five seconds. When the wind shifted and the smokey work area became a solid white-out, I lost all sense of direction and one of the men pulled me out of it into fresh air. In this post, you see the overview of the area as well as my 14mm shot of the workers. I took this ultra wide-angle picture without looking through the viewfinder because I was coughing too much and my eyes were watering. Many of the workers now make more money from the tips tourists and photographers give them to take these kinds of pictures.