It is a singular face-to-face.
“A kind of obsession,” he says.
Bruno Bébert, a photographer journalist from Nice, has been immortalizing for ten years, day and night, under the stormy sky or the low sun of a misleading horizon, the waves raging during storms in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes).
Because yes there are many storms along the Mediterranean coasts.
These swells, several times a year, go up from the beach to the pergolas (and their white benches) of the Promenade des Anglais, strafing the sidewalks with great shingle blows.
And the result of his peregrinations logically baptized “10 waves” is exhibited until March 31 on the famous avenue, very close to the Negresco, in full view of joggers and walkers. Beyond the poetic or frankly aesthetic aspect, the ten monumental shots are also the living reflection of climate change, believes their author. "It's not normal that in a decade there are so many natural phenomena of this type," he observes. It happens several times a year whereas before it was really very rare, maybe every ten years. The city of Nice, which organizes this exhibition, seems to share the observation. In her presentation, she describes these dangerous waves "as witnesses to climate change".
The photographer, who chases these whirring aquatic shards, sometimes for hours like a portrait painter, "by personifying them and looking for different angles", had the click to start chasing them on November 8, 2011. His image , produced that day, was published by Le Figaro Magazine on a double page.
At the time, it was even compared to a painting by Magritte.
Since then, the cliché has made its way.
Storms too.