SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Borja, are you a photographing pilot or rather a flying photographer?

Borja: Both. But I earn my living as a pilot. Luckily! The photographers I know always complain about how difficult it is today to secure their existence as a photographer.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How to publish a book about photos of storms and thunderstorms?

Borja: In my case I have to say: by chance. I had taken many photos from the cockpit over the years and found them beautiful. But I did not realize that they are so special. When one day a publisher wrote to me and asked if I wanted to publish a book, I did not take that seriously at first. I'm not a professional photographer and I've never published a book, and the market for such photobooks in Latin America is manageable. Then he sent me a stack of illustrated books from his publishing house, large, impressive books. Only then did I realize that this was no joke for him.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How did the publisher become aware of you?

Borja: I am a big fan of "National Geografic" and registered with the photo community of the magazine. There I have published pictures every now and then. The cool thing is that the editors of the magazine sift through the pictures, comment and publish their favorite shots. One day a picture of me was picked. It showed a storm with a very special cloud formation that I had taken out of the cockpit. I was happy about the comments and additionally published the picture on Twitter. Then I forgot, frankly. It passed a few months in which the image, unnoticed by me, viral spread in various Facebook groups on the subject of meteorology. At some point, an editor of the Washington Post contacted me and asked if he could post the image on the newspaper's Facebook page. Later there was an article in the online and print edition.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your photo has made you career without you.

Borja: That's what you can say.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In your book you do not just show beautiful pictures. The texts also give the viewer a lot of basic knowledge about the weather and the different cloud types. What is your relationship with the weather as a pilot?

Borja: I've been fascinated for a long time. Aviation has always tried to make everything as safe as possible, striving for maximum risk control. Weather is one of the few things in aviation that we do not fully understand and certainly can not control. We study weather with supercomputers, we compute meteorological models, at the same time we have not yet understood many connections. For example, I once took a picture of a storm over Panama City, which should not have been there in shape like that. After that, I was contacted by several meteorologists who could not believe where the picture was taken.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Sounds not exactly trustworthy.

Borja: That's not what it meant. For us pilots and passengers, the weather is hardly threatened today. We do not understand all the connections, but we know where dangerous weather conditions are lurking on our route and will be redirected in a timely and far-reaching manner.

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Santiago Borja, Michaela Koschak
Pictures by # the Stormpilot. The book with breathtaking photos of storm clouds and flashes from the cockpit and exciting lyrics to ... French), 22.3x28.7cm, 160 pages

Publishing company:

teNew Media

Pages:

160

Price:

EUR 27.94

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SPIEGEL ONLINE: As a photographer you regret these diversions certainly. Would not you rather get closer or even fly through?

Borja: I do not want to fly through. In such clouds, there are such extreme ups and downs - no, thank you. And not really closer. The beauty is always in the view from afar. I can also watch storms or the clouds that distinguish them from a distance of 40 kilometers. It's best compared to a sunset: it looks beautiful from afar, but no one thinks or feels the urge to fly into the sun.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Have you never been surprised by the weather?

Borja: Certainly! As probably almost all pilots. What happens to us again and again unannounced are so-called Elms fire. Some clouds carry a lot of water particles in them and are electrically charged accordingly. When the plane then flies through, the voltage discharges in small flashes on the aircraft skin. Then, twenty centimeters before our eyes, small flashes of lightning dance across the cockpit windows. The phenomenon is well documented, there are quite a few videos of it - and yet it is spectacular and surprising every time it happens.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Have you ever experienced a lightning strike on the plane?

Borja: Yes, certainly four or five times. Fortunately, the plane looks like a Faraday cage, so there is no danger. But it is loud. It sounds like the bang in a car accident. I'm terrified every time, but I also laugh every time I'm scared.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have a favorite cloud shape ?

Borja: Cumulonimbus clouds, which tower up miles, I find already impressive. Whereby I'm less fascinated by individual cloud formations, but more generally landscapes that result from clouds, the interaction of different factors. For example, over large islands such as Cuba, some days the clouds over the land, as if you had cut with a knife the outline of the island. This is basically school knowledge: how land masses influence the formation of clouds. And then you see that in front of you, in such a pure, clear form, as land and air are connected. That's just overwhelming.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you actually allowed to take pictures during the flight?

Borja: My airline has no problem with that. It is not forbidden, such regulations do not exist, at least not by the aviation authorities. Of course, every airline is free to impose its own rules on its pilots, and some airlines do not like that. But it's less about safety. In a 12-hour flight I'm not sitting permanently on the control stick, but go to the bathroom, eat something, have my breaks. In critical phases of the flight, such as takeoff and landing, I would never think of dealing with my camera.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will your fascination for clouds ever wear off?

Borja: I actually asked myself that. Once the emotion of the first impression is gone, we humans tend to find just about everything boring at some point. For me and the clouds, I do not think that will happen. I fly for a comparatively small airline, there are basically two routes for me. I've certainly already crossed the Atlantic two hundred times. On days without clouds, the look is of course similar, the fascination of this sight has quickly settled down. But as soon as clouds are in the game, I feel the same fascination as the first time. Because it is never the same scenario, but always a new sight.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have a favorite picture, what is your trophy?

Borja: I have two. One is on the cover of the book, it shows a gigantic flash. Normally you do not see lightning, they discharge inside the clouds and then you can only see them from above or outside as diffused lights. I was lucky, the lightning flashed from one cloud to the other. For me it is a perfect picture, from a photographic perspective. My other favorite picture is the picture that made me career without me. It's a nice picture, but it's much more. It has given me an incredible number of remarkable and beautiful moments that I never thought I would experience. It brought me into contact with people, gave me knowledge, changed my life.