La silhouette d'un homme en chute libre, parfaitement aligné avec le soleil. Une photo exceptionnelle, prise par l'astrophotographe américain Andrew McCarthy, avec son parachutiste et ami Gabriel C. Brown, qui a été repartagée des millions de fois sur les réseaux sociaux. Pour Le Parisien, ils sont revenus sur les coulisses de cette photo, entre histoire d'amitié, contraintes techniques et... entraînements devant un miroir. #shorts
00:00Ce que vous voyez sur cette photo, c'est un homme qui saute devant le soleil.
00:08Cette photo, c'est l'histoire de deux amis, Andrew McCarthy et Gabriel Brown,
00:13qui ont un jour décidé d'allier leurs deux compétences, l'astrophotographie et le parachutisme.
00:17Et ça a donné ça, l'image de la silhouette de Gabriel en chute libre devant le soleil,
00:21plus précisément l'atmosphère du soleil et dans les moindres détails.
00:27Et ils nous ont raconté comment ils ont fait.
00:28Bon, d'abord, il a fallu avoir l'idée, puisque ça n'a plus ou moins jamais été fait auparavant.
00:32We went skydiving down here in southern Arizona.
00:35And after skydiving, we got to talking, and I had just released a photo of a rocket transiting the sun.
00:41And we thought, what if we could do something with a light aircraft or with a skydive?
00:47There was a very small window and we could do it, but we figured out it was possible after our planning.
00:52And then from there, it was easy enough to just set up a spot on the ground.
00:55Un saut qui a d'ailleurs dû être vachement étudié, parce que selon l'angle du corps de Gabriel,
01:09on aurait pu ne pas distinguer sa silhouette, et plutôt une espèce de masse sombre,
01:13pas reconnaissable, ce qui rend quand même beaucoup moins bien.
01:15I actually practiced in the mirror, a pose that I thought would look good, no matter which direction I was facing.
01:22Probably looked pretty stupid, but you know, almost everything that you do in practice looks silly until the final product is done.
01:29Fortunately, we got it pretty much exactly the way I wanted to see it, which is from the side.
01:34Autre grosse contrainte, l'alignement.
01:36Parce que oui, il faut un alignement parfait et une distance millimétrée entre le Soleil, Gabriel et le gigatélescope d'Andrew.
01:43Gabriel did most of the calculations.
01:44You want to align yourself laterally and then slowly ascend in frame about 25 degrees, which put us around 9 a.m.
01:52So four units forward for every one unit down.
01:54Being between 4,000 and 3,500 feet high and 1,5 miles away, which would make me just the right size
02:01to show the formidable size of the Sun and far enough away that I would still be in focus with the massive focal length of the camera that he was using.
02:09Mais malgré les calculs, la caméra ultra performante et les entraînements devant le miroir, la photo aurait pu ne juste jamais voir le jour.
02:16It took about an hour of the aircraft circling around before we got it in just the right spot for him to jump.
02:23The problem was, after an hour, the Sun got too high in the sky.
02:27So we knew if we didn't get it on the next go-around, we wouldn't be able to get it at all.
02:33We were planning to try to do multiple jumps in the day, but we realized with how long it would take to repack the parachute,
02:39how long it took to get to altitude, we only had one shot.
02:42So we had to make it count.
02:43Right there, I see you.
02:44All right.
02:45That's good.
02:47Okay.
02:49Three, two, one, go.
02:53Oh my God.
02:54I was on comms with him, and of course I couldn't hear him as I was in free fall,
03:00because it's very loud when you're going 120 miles an hour.
03:02But once my parachute was open, I asked...
03:05Hold it, he's alive.
03:06That's good.
03:07I got it, dude.
03:10Hey!
03:12I want you to see this.
03:14Dude.
03:18Shut up!
03:20Shut up!
03:21That's insane!
03:22What I imagined in my head had been printed on the screen.
03:26I was very afraid that it wouldn't work out.
03:27Even if we got the shot, I was worried it wouldn't look very good.
03:31Gabriel did an excellent job.
03:32The pilot, Jim, did an excellent job.
03:34And the result is an amazing photo.
03:36Son nom, La Chute d'Icare, référence au personnage de la mythologie grecque
03:40qui se brûle les ailes en s'approchant trop proche du soleil.
03:42Elle a été vue et repartagée des millions de fois,
03:45et même parfois qualifiée de photo de l'année.
03:47I had a feeling that nothing like this had ever been done before,
03:50but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be popular, right?
03:53No one's ever probably thrown a blueberry against the Washington Monument.
03:57That doesn't mean it's going to make national news.
03:59I definitely thought it would get some attention,
04:01but I didn't think it would get the viral response that it has gotten.
04:05This photo will always have a special place in my heart.
04:07I'm sure I'm going to look back on this
04:08and really think it's probably one of the highlights of my career.
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