Ijen Crater, 1910

Image: George P. Lewis/Studio Kurkdjian/National Gallery of Australia

Before the era of photography, explorers who roamed the Nusantara archipelago used paintings as illustrations to explain the locations they had visited in their books. But this was certainly inefficient and took time. Once photography technology was discovered, suddenly the existence of paintings as illustrations in books was increasingly replaced by photos.

Like the photo of Mount Ijen Crater above which was taken by George P. Lewis in 1910 and published by Studio Kurkdjian, a famous photo studio in Surabaya at that time. The photography business was a very profitable business at that time, because the technology was relatively new and there was still a lot of room to develop.

But of course the quality of black-and-white photos were not able to capture the actual color of the object being photographed. So that its beauty was not entirely imaginable by the reader

Image: The Asian Parent

From the color photo, it can be seen that the color of the water in Ijen Crater is green with yellow sulfur adorning the edges. This cannot be captured by black-and-white photographs of the past.