ULLA LOHMANN

IT’S LATE September when I phone Ulla Lohmann and when she describes her schedule for the next two months I feel incredibly lucky to be speaking to her. Ulla has just returned from an assignment to Indonesia and Vanuatu, and my suggestion that she will be able to enjoy home-life for a couple of weeks, is met with a laugh: “This year I have not been home for weeks!” she exclaims. “I’m home tomorrow and then I’m off again to a photo festival in France. Then I go to Italy to teach a workshop and then to Sweden and the Netherlands for talks, and in the middle of November I go back to Vanuatu. I’m home for six days altogether. At home, I wash my stuff, repack and then I’m off again.”

Her talks feature her spectacular images of volcanoes, which have been an obsession since childhood. In 2014, Ulla made her first attempt to abseil inside the crater of a volcano in Vanuatu to get as close as possible to the bubbling cauldron of the lava lake. Her husband Basti Hofman, an Alpine mountaineer, shares her obsession and proposed to her on a crater rim. Even their 17-month-old son Manuk is named after a dormant volcano in Indonesia. But judging by the noises of delight I hear in the background, the toddler Manuk is very active…

01 THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

Two climbers look down into the Benbow crater, Vanuatu, the red volcanic fumes blocking out the night sky

Lens Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM at 20mm

Exposure 20 secs, f/7.1, ISO800

02 SMOKING ISLAND

Ambrym Island with a plume of smoke obscuring the summit of its active peak

Lens Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM at 20mm

Exposure 1/640 sec, f/6.3, ISO400

03 LAVA EXPLOSION

Lava explodes above the Benbow crater. Scientists expect a major eruption every 50 to 100 years – the last one was in 1951

Lens Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM at 200mm

1/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO800