A stormy supercell in the distance, rumbling thunder… That’s all it takes to make Xavier Delorme smile. Since 2002, this Chartrain photographer has been tracking storms every summer. In Eure-et-Loir, on his land, but also in Charente-Maritime, on Mont Ventoux (Vaucluse), or in Burgundy, this storm hunter travels “more than five thousand kilometers a year”, in search of phenomena the most spectacular weather.
“My vehicle is my shelter: lightning and wind are dangerous phenomena. In 2014, I don’t know if the storm was angry with me, but on three occasions, lightning struck less than thirty meters away: in June in Lorient (Morbihan), in August in the Var and on October 9 in Calvisson (Gard),” recalls this weather enthusiast.
It was his father, in 1998, who gave him the secrets of the long break in photography and allowed him to capture, for the very first time, the tiny life of lightning, a luminous phenomenon that can last between a millisecond and 2 seconds. What attracts the amateur meteorologist is the unexpected side of the storm. “We can’t predict anything, we don’t know what will happen and, each time, it’s different”, says the one who observes atmospheric disturbances on behalf of Météorage, a subsidiary of Météo-France.
The field photographer has also noted an evolution of storms over the past three years. “There are still so many storms but now they are often accompanied by heavy rain, a sign of global warming. Storms also form much more often during the day, whereas when I started, they usually broke out in the evening and at night. “A transformation of storms which” is not good for the photo, he regrets. The lightning is hidden by the curtains of rain and, during the day, we appreciate less what we see”, remarks the forties.
His electrified Mont-Saint-Michel took him two years
To freeze the flash, the photographer waits “up to twelve hours” to watch the storm form. His car, a veritable meteorological laboratory, allows him to follow the organization of cumulonimbus clouds live. Outside, on a tripod, a Sony Alpha 7 III or a Sony Alpha 7 R III, with two lenses and two frames to be sure not to miss the photo. These boxes are capable of shooting in burst mode at “10 frames per second”. But Xavier’s secret weapon is lightning sensors, which allow him to “capture lightning, even during the day”.
Patience is also needed to capture the most beautiful impacts. His Mont-Saint-Michel, electrified by lightning, took him two years to wait. “I’ve been there three or four times, as thunderstorms rarely pass over Mt. That evening, in 2018, the storm made two impacts and nothing. But, by chance, lightning fell right next to the abbey,” recalls the enthusiast.
In Eure-et-Loir, the inhabitant of Chartres likes to point his lens towards the cathedral. “We see it from everywhere, it offers different angles and it is really above the city. The storm gives it a smaller dimension”, like this September 2, 2022 when the sky seems to speak directly to Notre-Dame. Shining like lightning, Xavier Delorme will never let the storm pass. His work is to be appreciated on https://xavier-delorme.book.fr/. The photographer will exhibit eighty-four shots this summer at the Sélestat media library (Bas-Rhin).
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