The lighthouse La Jument
The lighthouse is called La Jument and is one of the most spectacular lanterns on the French coast. It is two kilometers of water inside the island of Ouessant and was built between 1904 and 1911 to signal dangerous lows in which a multitude of shipwrecks had occurred.
The history of the photo takes place on December 21, 1989. French lighthouse photographer Jean Guichard flew over a La Jument helicopter on a day of heavy storm looking for the perfect shot of those gigantic waves of the Atlantic crashing against the lighthouse structure. Inside, the lairman Theophile Malgorn, who was in his thirties at the time, heard the repeated pasts of the helicopter and thought something strange could happen; perhaps the pilot was trying to contact him about a wreck or an accident. And in a full-fledged maneuver he opened the door to see what was happening.
The full action only lasted a few seconds. Guichard saw that man at the doorway and his photographer instinct told him there was a perfect composition there: man and the force of nature. He started firing in burst mode his camera almost as a giant new wave began hugging with tons of water raging the lighthouse structure. At that very moment, lighthouse Malgorn – knocking on the door’s door – heard dry thunder, like a brutal stampede (the impact of the wave against the head of the lighthouse) and knew he had made a tremendous mistake. As fast as he opened he closed the door again, just a thousandth of a second before the wave swept everything away. He was alive on a miracle. In Guichard's reel 9 images were printed - those that gave the camera engine time to shoot - that would make him famous for life and with which in 1990 he would get the second prize in the World Press Photo (the first was for the famous photo of a Chinese protester stopping a column of fighting cars alone in Tianammen).
Farmer Theophile Malgor
