Ulla Lohmann

Nothing gets Ulla Lohmann more excited than the idea of shooting bubbling lava lakes inside the volcanoes of Indonesia. Keith Wilson finds out how this all started and why Ulla believes it’s not as risky as taking the subway…

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…

It sounds like he’s following in his mother’s footsteps?

He’s been to two active volcanoes so far and we are working on a project around Europe to climb the highest mountain in each European country. He has been with us to over 35 countries so far!

What were you doing in Indonesia?