GUNUNG SEMERU IMAGED IN AUTOCHROME LUMIERE

AUTOCHROME LUMIERE (ANONYMUS)

Gunung Semeru or Gunung Mahameru (3, 676m - 12, 060ft) 

Java - Indonesia

In Gunung Semeru  Anonymus Autochrome Lumière process, circa 1920
©wandering vertexes collection 2016. No copy allowed. Al rights reserved.  

The mountain 

Mount Semeru - Gunung Semeru or Gunung Mahameru indonesian - (3, 676m - 12, 060ft)  is an active volcano located in East Java, Indonesia. It is the highest mountain on the island of Java. This stratovolcano is also known as Mahameru, meaning 'The Great Mountain. The name derived from the Hindu-Buddhist mythical mountain of Meru or Sumeru, the abode of gods.  Semeru is named from Sumeru, the central world-mountain in Buddhist cosmology and by extension Hinduism. As stated in legend, it was transplanted from India; the tale is recorded in the 15th-century East Javanese work Tantu Pagelaran. It was originally placed in the western part of the island, but that caused the island to tip, so it was moved eastward. On that journey, parts kept coming off the lower rim, forming the mountains Lawu, Wilis, Kelut, Kawi, Arjuno and Welirang. The damage thus caused to the foot of the mountain caused it to shake, and the top came off and created Penanggungan as well. Indonesian Hindus also hold a belief that the mountain is the abode of Shiva in Java.

Gunung Semeru or Mahameru is very steep rising abruptly above the coastal plains of eastern Java. Semeru lies at the south end of the Tengger Volcanic Complex.

Semeru's eruptive history is extensive.
Since 1818, at least 55 eruptions have been recorded (10 of which resulted in fatalities) consisting of both lava flows and pyroclastic flows. All historical eruptions have had a VEI of 2 or 3. Semeru has been in a state of near-constant eruption from 1967 to the present. At times, small eruptions happen every 20 minutes or so.
In 2014, there are as many as 25 non-native plants in Mount Semeru National Park, which threaten the endemic local plants. The foreign plants were imported by a Dutch botanist named Van Steenis, in the colonial era. They include Foeniculum vulgare mill, Verbena brasiliensis, chromolaena odorata, and Salvinia molesta.
Mud erosion from surrounding vegetable plantations are also making problem of silting of Ranu Pane Lake, which the lake becomes smaller and shallower. Research predicted the lake will disappear in about 2025, except the kind of vegetables plantation is replaced with more ecological plantations.
Semeru is regularly climbed by tourists, usually starting from the village of Ranu Pane to the north, but though non-technical it can be dangerous. mainly because of the  poisonous gases on Mount Semeru.

Autochrome process
The Autochrome Lumière is an early color photography process. Patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers in France and first marketed in 1907, it was the principal color photography process in use before the advent of subtractive color film in the mid-1930s.
Between 1909 and 1931, a collection of 72,000 Autochrome photographs, documenting life at the time in 50 countries around the world, was created by French banker Albert Kahn. The collection, one of the biggest of its kind in the world, is housed in The Albert Kahn Museum on the outskirts of Paris. A new compilation of images from the Albert Kahn collection was published in 2008. Several images from the Albert Kahn Collection have been already published in this blog
The National Geographic Society made extensive use of Autochromes and other mosaic color screen plates for over twenty years. 15,000 original Autochrome plates are still preserved in the Society's archives.
In the U.S. Library of Congress's huge collection of American Pictorialist photographer Arnold Genthe's work, 384 of his Autochrome plates were among the holdings as of 1955.
Many photographers used it anonymously as well.