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.
04:10Thank you.
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