Wicked weather

I thought this might be a suitable post while we may be enjoying or grumbling about our Ontario winter storms.

For those who have been over to my place you will likely remember this photo hanging up in large print.




This photograph was taken by photographer Jean Guichard! The photo was taken on Thursday 21 December 1989 and is of the Lighthouse la Jument found on the Atlantic coastline of France!

For Veronica and I, having this photo in print at 2 by 3 foot large, it's often a conversation piece with visitors. I've never known the true story so finally thanks to our latest visit from Mom and Dad Hart we looked it up. I thought the story interesting enough to share with you all:

The photograph and the lighthouse:

French photographer Jean Guichard is best known for his explosive ‘Wave’ photograph of a lighthouse, off the coast of Brittany, France, showing a keeper at the door about to be engulfed by a titanic wave. The photograph is truly one of the most recognizable lighthouse photographs in the world.

When first seeing the famous photograph, most people assume that the lighthouse keeper must have been killed. In fact, the keepers had been living in fear of death during the 1989 storm and at one point had taken refuge in the lantern room of the tower. Waves the night before had smashed through the lower windows of the tower, causing the structure to flood, washing away everything in its path including the television, table, chairs, coffee maker and even the refrigerator.

The keepers in fact were waiting to be rescued by helicopter. As Jean Guichard’s helicopter approached the tower he was unaware that the keepers were waiting for a rescue helicopter. Guichard was simply there to take photographs of the waves pounding the structure. The keepers heard the sound of the helicopter and naturally assumed it was the rescue helicopter. One of the keepers opened the lower door of the structure and as he looked up at the helicopter and realized that it was not the rescue chopper, he also realized that a giant wave was about to engulf the tower. He immediately turned about and pulled the door closed behind him. Had he not done so at that second, he surely would have been killed. While all this was happening, Jean Guichard was busy taking photographs as fast as he could click the camera, thus capturing on film the most dramatic action shots ever taken at a lighthouse.

As written by Timothy Harrison in Lighthouse Depot (May 18, 2001), Wells, Maine

For your interest, here is a set of pics also taken by Jean Guichard: