Stories That Move

Jon Carmichael | 108: A Once-In-A-Lifetime Eclipse Photo

• DreamOn Studios • Season 1 • Episode 38

Share episode

A canceled keynote, a delayed flight, and a pilot with a rag might sound like chaos—until you see how it all snaps into focus. Photographer and pilot Jon Carmichael joins us to unpack the once-in-a-lifetime chain reaction that led to “108,” his breathtaking mosaic of the Great American Eclipse captured from a Southwest Airlines window at 39,000 feet. From childhood rocket launches and a seventh-grade eclipse demo to a last-minute scramble across flight paths, Jon shows how stubborn curiosity, bold asks, and help from total strangers can bend the odds.

We talk through the technical and the human: why photographing the moon’s shadow required telephoto mosaics and ATC-cleared S-turns, how the layered plastic of a window warps images, and what it took to catch the half-second “diamond ring.” Jon explains the thin blue line of our atmosphere and why the image feels like space despite its commercial altitude. Then the story pivots—Elon Musk cancels a surprise keynote, Jack Dorsey hears Jon’s tale, and in 45 minutes Jon steps on stage for the first time to speak to 5,000 people. The room erupts, and a new calling is born.

This episode is a masterclass in perspective and perseverance. You’ll hear practical lessons for leaders on building cultures of curiosity, for creators on asking boldly and iterating under pressure, and for anyone who needs a reminder that awe can heal division. If you’ve never stood in totality, Jon makes the case to travel the extra miles—because 99 percent isn’t the same as 100. If this story moved you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Check out more of Jon's Work:
JonCarmichael.com
Jon's Instagram
Jon's X (Twitter)

FIND US ON THE SOCIALS:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreamonstudios.io
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DreamOnStudios574
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dreamon-studios/

Jon:

So yeah, I it was the biggest event in Twitter's history. 5,000 employees from all around the world coming together for a giant company all hand, and the CMO, Leslie Berlin, she's the sweetest girl in the world, she walks up to me and she said, Jon, I have bad news. Elon Musk just canceled. And he gets he gets real quiet at the end and goes, Okay, here's what's gonna happen. In 45 minutes or so, I would like you to replace Elon's keynote. I was like, I'm sorry, what? I want you to show this photo and tell this story in front of my entire company. Do you think you can handle that?

Matt:

Welcome back to Stories That Move, brought to you by DreamOn Studios. I'm your host, Matt Deuel. Today I'm joined by someone whose work has literally stopped people in their tracks. Astrophotographer Jon Carmichael captured the world's attention when he unveiled 108, his once-in-a-lifetime image of the great American eclipse. The planning behind that moment took years, and the challenges that he faced along the way were wild, and the story of how he pulled it off has inspired people all over the world. But Jon is more than an incredible photographer. He's a pilot, a public speaker, and someone who brings a contagious sense of curiosity and wonder to everything he does. He talks about dreams, connection, and what it takes to keep going when the path gets tough. I'm excited for you to hear this conversation. So let's jump in and welcome Jon Carmichael to Stories That Move. Welcome back to Stories That Move. I'm your host, Matt Deuel, and I am just so excited about today's episode. I mean, this is like, you guys, this is like a Christmas present early, is what it is. So we've got a really special guest on the show today, Jon Carmichael, who I just met a couple of weeks ago through the Growth Summit through our mutual friend Keith Sampson. Jon, you know, is uh a keynote speaker among other things, and um he wasn't even planning to be at the growth summit, happened to find himself in Illinois at an event and realized, hey, I can add a few hours to my trip, come over and see my friends at the Growth Summit. We met through that. I started to hear his story, and within five minutes, I was like, Jon, will you come on our podcast, please? And so he so graciously agreed. So, Jon, welcome to Stories That Move.

Jon:

Hey, Matt, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. It's just so funny how we just spontaneously met, and and here we are. Here we are, yes.

Matt:

Oh my goodness, yes. And we found so many things in common and and so many just mutual loves for things, one of which is just Jon's work also as a photographer. Um, so Jon, take a moment, just introduce yourself to the audience and and just tell us a little bit about yourself and some of the work that you're doing. What are you up to in the world today?

Jon:

Well, I'm up in my camper van today in the world. So um, this is actually my camper van here. I spent um like three years designing it on an architecture program in VR and hiring carpenters and things and you know getting it all dialed in. So I'm an astrophotographer, a landscape photographer. Um, and uh, although I spent 18 years uh photographing professionally as a corporate photographer and political photographer, photographing presidential fundraisers and corporate events and things like that. That was kind of my bread and butter, but my real passion's always been landscape and astrophotography. So um, but after you know, almost 20 years being out in the middle of nowhere trying to photograph the night sky and being exhausted from camping and everything, I'm turning 40 next year, and I was like, you know what? 40 is my cutoff. I gotta do this in a little bit more comfort. So that was kind of the dream of the camper van, and it's got heated floors, full bathroom, full kitchen. I mean, it's got everything you need and lots of power too for all the equipment. So I'm I'm kind of living the dream as they say, even though it's come with plenty of challenges that I didn't expect. So, you know, you gotta roll through the punches. But um, but yeah, I'm so excited to be here. Awesome. I'm also a keynote speaker. Uh, like you said earlier, that was not my plan. That was just a total accident. Yeah, we'll probably get to the code.

Matt:

100%. Yeah, no, so good. So um, where are you actually? I mean, parked right now. You are where?

Jon:

Right now, I'm in nowhere exciting. Well, okay, I was going to say I I'm in a parking lot at an Anytime Fitness uh so I could work out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, that was not a plug, but not sponsored by um but it's an Anytime Fitness in the middle of nowhere, kind of outside of Idaho Falls. I can't believe that there was a location out here, but yeah, I was just in the Grand Teton National Park um and in Jackson, Wyoming for about three or four weeks. Um I I was only gonna be there for a few days and I fell in love, so I just couldn't leave. So I just left there finally yesterday.

Matt:

So I know you were having some adventures up there, uh tracking some northern lights and getting some photos of that. So I know you had some crazy, could some crazy all-nighters to get some of those photos.

Jon:

Oh man, I was like a giddy five-year-old. I was uh, you know, I I my passion for photography ebbs and flows, and that night it was like at its peak because that's something I've been wanting to see my whole life. And uh, and that was kind of one of the main goals in the van was to be able to stay up north in the winter climate more. I'm originally from Las Vegas, so I grew up in the desert, yeah. And uh, and then I lived in LA. I I really haven't experienced a lot of winter, so that uh winter landscapes one of my most favorite things. So um, and then little did I know I would get one of the best Northern Lights shows in Wyoming in their history. Uh, and it was it was um the most incredible experience. I mean, yeah, it was truly like these lights dancing above you, and it uh I mean, part of me was just wanting to take in the moment, but the photographer in me was like, ah, and I have never photographed the auroras before, so there was a little bit of a learning curve there that I realized right away that I was like, oh wow, I actually have to quicken my shutter speed for these, you know. But um it was a lot brighter than I thought it was gonna be. So man.

Matt:

But no, you and I were texting back and forth a little bit, and I was cheating. I was going iPhone mode, you know, which is just you know, you throw it up. So here in Indiana, we got a little bit, we didn't get quite quite the Grand Teton experience that you did. But man, anytime you look up and you see something like that, it's it's a special thing. It's a special thing. Well, well, hey, um, so excited to dive more into your story, and I'm just gonna say for all of our you know listeners today, if you don't know, we have a YouTube version of this podcast where you can see the video version, and I'm just gonna encourage you, you're gonna want to see the video version of this because we're gonna have some amazing visuals today throughout the story uh as we share some of the photos and some of uh Jon's incredible work. So, Jon, let's let's rewind just a little bit. Take us to your childhood. What was childhood like for you? And um, yeah, what were some of those things that just kind of birthed some of those initial interests of what it meant to look up into the night sky with a camera?

Jon:

Yeah, I um I was a curious little child, and um I I my first passion was always flying. I was obsessed with airplanes, I had to look up anytime I heard an airplane going by, and I got to know like all the coolest airplanes. I would go to these air shows in Las Vegas, and I remember I saw the Concord once, that's kind of how old I am. Um and uh yeah, so I I um so I've always loved seeing the earth from high up and always dreamed of one day becoming a pilot and you know the freedom of flying and feeling like you're a bird, and um, so that that was my the first passion that I had since day one, pretty much. Um, and then naturally I've always loved seeing the moon, and you know, I growing up in Vegas, you couldn't see a lot of stars, so um, so it was quite a long time until I saw the Milky Way for the first time. And when I saw that, uh, I was in the Boy Scouts for a little while, and we went on a camping trip, and yeah, and I was like, There are this many stars, what? And like, you know, you could see this milky streak across the sky, which I didn't know what it was I was looking at. But then uh when I was in seventh grade, I was 12 years old, and my geography teacher, Mrs. Thompson, turned out all the lights in the classroom one day, and she did a whole demonstration. Um, and she uh had a student hold a flashlight across the room for the sun, had a globe, and had a baseball for the moon, and started orbiting the moon around the earth, illustrating for us what the moon's phases are. You know, this is a quarter moon and full moon, new moon, and so forth. And she said, every once in a while though, the moon will perfectly align in between the sun and the earth, creating what's called a total solar eclipse where the moon's shadow casts onto the earth's surface. And um, she said it's very rare, but if you're lucky enough and in the right place at the right time, you can actually be inside that moon's shadow, and from there you would see the entire sky in the middle of the daytime suddenly turn completely dark, like it's midnight within seconds. And she showed us all these photos of eclipses throughout history, and little 12-year-old me was in the back of the room with my jaw on the floor. I was just totally in shock. I'm like, This exists?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh yeah.

Jon:

I was like, haven't I ever heard of this before? I run home from school. I'm like, Mom and dad, have you ever seen a total eclipse? You know, and I don't think so. Is that the same as a lunar eclipse? And I said, Wait, so you've never been to totality? And my dad said, What's totality? I'm like, Oh my god, how could you live your whole life not seeing one of these? And my dad was quite old. Uh, he was in born in 1931. Oh wow. So he was probably in his late 60s at this time. I'm like, You're that old and you haven't seen one of these. Okay. Yeah. Um and so since that day, you know, I ran back to school the next day. I'm like, Miss Thompson, when's the next eclipse here? And she looks it up and she goes, uh, not for another 20 years. I'm like, 20 years? I'm doing the math. And I'm like, I'm gonna be in my 30s, you know? I'm gonna be an old man. Um, but since that day, I was determined I'm not gonna be one of those silly adults that's never seen that. So I was looking forward to that eclipse for 20 years. Wow. Um, and meanwhile, oh, I should also mention my biggest passion growing up, aside from flying, was building and launching model rockets. Yeah, so I built dozens and dozens of them. Rocket, I was the rocket I was most proud of was over six feet tall and flew over a thousand feet up in the air. Uh, it's hard to believe my parents even let me do that. That's um, it was actually harder to convince my parents to let me get my very cool vanilla ice haircut. I'll have to send you a photo of me with my bleach blonde hair holding one of my rockets.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jon:

Um, but my most favorite rocket was called the AstroCam because it actually had a camera on the top on the nose cone. Yes. And I had that one. It would take you really? Yeah, no, absolutely. Yes. Oh man. Yeah, and this this is back in the 90s, you know. Yeah. I guess you're probably the same age roughly than I am. That you know, where we remember the 90s before internet and before digital photography. So I remember being so excited to get them developed and uh try to improve the rocket and to get it higher and to get better photos of the earth from high up above. So that was kind of my way of being sort of a a pilot, a remote pilot. You know, this is before drones and stuff. Man, if we would have had drones back then, I would have been over. I would have been in heaven for sure. Um, anyway, so so with these passions merged together, eventually um my parents uh unfortunately didn't have a lot of money, so they couldn't afford to put me through flight school, so I had to wait till I became an adult and find my own way to make money, and I saved up. I finally uh got my pilot's license, cut put myself through flight school, and um, and I that was the greatest joy. So I bought uh a powered hang glider. Um I guess the technical name for it is a weight shift controlled light sport aircraft. Um and I've flown a lot of different types of aircraft, you know, Cessna's, and even flown in a helicopter before, but this was like the closest to feeling like a bird you can you can get to. You literally like your arms are out, yeah, like a bird, and you shift your weight, you shift your arms to steer. I mean, it really is like feeling like you're a bird, and the throttle is on uh is a a foot throttle, so it feels like you're driving a car, but you're it's like Mario Kart, you know, with the like the hang glide wing, you know, in Mario Kart. That's exactly what it is. Um and so that was my greatest joy. I mean, I I took my friends and family up flying all the time. Um remind me to send you some photos of that too, because it's just so cool. So um, so these passions all merge together, and now I'm looking forward to this eclipse.

Matt:

Yeah, right, right. So, really, really quick though, I want to I want to just kind of back up because uh again, like you said, this sense of curiosity, curious child, you're leaning into adventures um in such a cool way, you know, as as a kid and then as a young adult. Was that you get that from your parents? I mean, did you, you know, you mentioned your dad's a was a little bit older of a dad. I mean, did you just see that kind of modeled for you or or that you were just kind of an outlier as as far as that?

Jon:

That's a really good question. I d definitely got it from my dad. I I probably didn't know it at the time, but my dad was um a creative genius. He was even though he was older, he died um unfortunately, uh, but he was 81 when he died, so he had a long life. Sure. Yeah. Um I was very young, so sadly I didn't, you know, I lost him in my mid-20s. But yeah, um, but he um he was a uh a painter, he was a poet, he wrote a bunch of novels, he was a board game designer, that was actually his career. Okay uh as well as um he was very well known in the advertising world. He founded a company called Carmichael Lynch Advertising in Minneapolis that still exists today. Unfortunately, my dad um had a uh a mental breakdown um in his 30s, and and he left the agency. And um but that all kind of boiled down to um being torn between what he wanted to do with his passions of board games and advertising. He loved board games, but he couldn't do both, and so um so he he kind of went full throttle in in uh the board game world, and one of his most successful board games was called Mr. President, um which I actually gave uh one of the only unopened copies from 1967. I gave it to President Obama uh as a gift. Um and President Obama kind of indirectly saved my dad's life. It's a whole crazy story. Um but um okay, hold on.

Matt:

Just for our listeners, just get ready because this is talking with this is what it's like to talk to Jon right now. I mean, these stories, you are filled with these stories. Like that's that's crazy that you got to hand off a board game your dad made to President Obama, and you're saying that like that's what we all do. So cool.

Jon:

Okay. Anyway, so that's when I told him more about my dad, and my dad was a board game designer, and my dad was a big fan of his, and and I gave him the board game as a gift, and and it was in his office uh uh for the last two years of his presidency, which is just mind-boggling to me. And my dad would have been just so floored. My dad was so into politics. So cool.

Matt:

Anyway, that's that's the very shortened version to all that for no, so good. Okay. So obviously, your dad, huge influence on your life and amazing cool stories there with him. So now take us to this eclipse. So you find out about it when you're 12 years old, you put it on the calendar. When I'm 32, this eclipse is coming. I'm gonna be ready for it. So uh yeah, talk to us about that that thing and and how you prepared for it and then what you ended up doing.

Jon:

Yeah, so you know, it was in the back of my mind, obviously, for a very long time. Um, and so fast forward, eventually I become a photographer, and then I discovered astrophotography. And when I realized I can merge my passions for astronomy with photography, that was it. My social life ended. I mean, I was like out in the middle of nowhere all the time. And so um, so over the years, I'm like, what do I do for this big historic moment? First first solar eclipse uh to sweep across the US in 99 years, and um and you know, this also ended up becoming the most photographed moment in human history. I mean, that's a lot of pressure as a photographer. I mean, how do you get a unique photo that literally millions of people are also photographing at the same time? Um, but with my passion for flying and and maybe that AstroCram rocket was a part to do with this, you know, I kept wondering if you could get up high enough in the air, would you actually be able to see the moon's shadow beneath you cast onto the earth's surface moving across our planet at 2,000 miles per hour? That Miss Miss Thompson showed us that shadow, you know, on the earth. That selfishly, I just had to see that. I wanted to witness that for myself. And as a photographer, I wondered, could I actually capture this, you know, doing what's called a photographic mosaic, which I do in most of my work. I instead of taking one image, I take hundreds of images and stitch them, piece them all together like a giant puzzle to get as much detail as possible so you can blow it up, you know, larger than life and walk up this close to it and see the crystal clear detail. Um and so it happened. And so when I had this vision in my head of being up in the air for this, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I just thought, okay, I'm gonna be in the air for this somehow. But how is a whole nother story, right? Because I did, you know, the math as much as best as I could, and I realized, you know, to get enough of the moon shadow, because the moon shadow is about 60 miles wide, um, you have to be at least 30,000 plus feet up in the air to get enough of the moon shadow. Yes, you know, so nothing could rent.

Matt:

Couldn't go that high.

Jon:

Yeah, I couldn't fly my little hang glider. I I couldn't, you know, um rent a little Cessna for this. I needed to be in a jet. Um, and so of course, naturally I start out of curiosity looking at private jet companies and reaching out to them trying to get bank loans, and I'm like realizing how expensive this is actually gonna be, and I'm like, there's no way I can afford this. Like, I was just in a lot of debt at the time. I was not making a lot of money, and um, and so you know, I kind of set set it aside for a little while, and then about a a year before the eclipse, Alaska Airlines did this big announcement, and they said that they were actually um chartering one of their aircraft that was gonna go over the Pacific Ocean for the beginning of the eclipse to be one of the first people inside the moon shadow. And but it was already reserved for all these astrophysicists and astronauts and eclipse chasers and scientists and whatnot, but they were keeping one seat open to be on the flight. All you had to do was spend a 30-second video explaining why you should be the one on this plane to try to convince them. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is it, this is my one shot, you know, to be on this plane. And so I worked so hard on this 30-second video. I mean, I hired an animator for it, I learned how to compose music to make the crescendo just right within 30 seconds. I'd never done that before. I bought, you know, a actual microphone for the for the voiceover, and and it was basically like a commercial by the end of it, which is funny because that's what my dad did for a living was make commercials, so I kind of felt like I did what he did, you know. Yeah. Anyway, so um I send it in and I'm just so nervous because the the they didn't announce the winner until less than a week before the eclipse, and all my eggs are in this one basket.

Matt:

Oh wow, yeah.

Jon:

And this is just a normal, normal flight. So uh, or this is just uh, you know, uh this is all my eggs are in this basket, and this is just I'm in New York City, I'm nowhere near the moon shadow path going through the middle of the US, so a lot was at stake, and they finally announced the winner, and I lost, and I was so devastated and annoyed because the person that won it was just a terrible video. I'm saying that unbiasedly, like it was literally just somebody talking on a webcam without any editing or anything. I'm pretty sure she went over the 30-second limit. I was just very annoyed, and I'm literally trying to contact these Alaska Airlines executives, you know, email addresses like, are you sure you didn't see this video? You know, like I worked so hard for this. Yeah, and so now I'm I'm laying I'm laying in bed just depressed, couldn't get out of bed for days because I'm just thinking it's all over, you know, and and one day I finally roll out of bed and I think, you know what? I'm gonna look at all the commercial flight paths around the whole US, hundreds of flights, if not thousands, and comparing them to the moon shadow path. And I immediately am pulling my hair out because I'm like, you know, trying to do the math. Okay, absolute spaghetti. Planes are going roughly 500 miles per hour, cruising speed, and the moon shadow is going 2,000 miles per hour. So to intersect these flights just right, uh if it's an a minute delayed, it's it's it's over. And so, yeah, but right before giving up, I found one flight on Southwest Airlines, and this flight was going from Portland, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri. And my dad was born in St. Louis, I've always wanted to go there, especially since he passed away. And my dad's grandson, my nephew, lived in Portland, who he was an adult, you know, he has a house and kids and stuff. Yeah, and um, I'm like, oh, this is perfect. I could stay with them the night before. It felt meant to be. There was literally one seat left, it said on online. So I book it without thinking. Now I have to book another flight to get to Oregon from New York across the country, which also this ended up becoming the biggest travel day in US history. Millions of people were trying to travel to this little path in the world.

Matt:

And you're figuring all this out and making these decisions. I mean, within days of this eclipse happening. Oh, yeah, I'm yeah.

Jon:

Yeah, like uh I'm I'm reaching out to friends, like, can you help me find a flight, you know, and this and that? And then um my friend uh found this this flight path, and I was like, okay, let's look into this, and we're like, wait a minute, this could be so yeah. I mean, I was putting my all into this, getting reaching out to pilot friends, whoever I could. So I was really scrambling. Um, so so I book this other flight. I get to Oregon the day before, but the biggest thing I'm nervous about is Southwest Airlines, and Southwest doesn't have any assigned seating. You get assigned like group A, B, or C, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Jon:

And I get assigned group C seat 18, and I'm like, I'm gonna be the last person on this plane.

Speaker 2:

I'm not even gonna get a window seat.

Jon:

Yeah, yeah, not even uh especially a window. I needed a window that's up front so that the wing isn't in the way of the shot, you know. Yeah, so all these obstacles in my way, and it's just a normal flight. So I I brought six hundred dollars cash with me, ready to bribe somebody for their window seat. Nice. Like, you know, you gotta do what you can, like years in the making, like you've come this far. Oh yeah, yeah.

Matt:

I've been thinking about this for 20 years, yeah.

Jon:

Yeah, what's another 600 bucks after thousands on these flights and all that? So so I um uh so I get to the airport, and I don't know what the odds of this happening are, but that Alaska Airlines flight with that contest happened to be leaving out of the same city, out of the same airport, out of the same terminal, out of the gate right next to ours. And they're having this huge eclipse party. Okay, I'm talking literally a red carpet event and everything. I'll I'll have to uh send you photos of this because you've never seen this happening at an airport, I guarantee you. Like news cameras everywhere, you know, a whole step and repeat red carpet thing, and and I see the person that beat me right there in front of me. And it's like the universe. I know so I turn around and I look at our gate, and it says that our flight is 25 minutes delayed. And I'm like, you've got to be freaking kidding me. Now I'm trying to rub elbows with these Alaska Airlines people. Like, are you sure there's not an empty seat? Like, I've got six hundred dollars, you know, I'll give it to you. And they're like, Oh no, we're definitely full, and they're all celebrating and cheering and getting on board, and and I'm I'm freaking out, right? I'm giving you the longer version here. Um, that's what podcasts are great for. Absolutely.

Matt:

That's the long form. Yeah.

Jon:

Yeah, I don't normally get to share this some of these details on stage. Um, but so I'm I'm kind of I'm stressing out because you know, 25 minutes delayed, and yeah, you know, we're gonna depart roughly an hour before the eclipse, but now we're only gonna be departing like 35 minutes before the eclipse. Are we gonna be high enough? Are we gonna be in the moon shadow in time? I'm so I'm I'm debating whether or not I should leave the airport, catch an Uber, and drive south 10 miles to at least see this eclipse from the ground. Oh wow, okay. Um so I'm really torn, right? And and but finally uh a flight attendant comes on to the intercom, you know, and she says, Thank you so much for your patience, ladies and gentlemen. There's actually a reason why we've delayed your flight today. Most of you probably heard by now this very historic moment. Uh for the first time in 99 years, a total eclipse going across our country. And these three gentlemen standing next to me here are three executives from Southwest Corporate that flew out from our headquarters in Dallas to be on the flight with us today. And they brought eclipse glasses with them, and all the drinks are gonna be free on today's flight. They're eclipse themed drinks, so you know Bloody Mary's gonna be called a solar flare or whatever, and and we want you to have great time, they're all free. But the biggest news of all, we actually intentionally delayed the flight just right to make sure that we'd be inside the moon shadows. Oh, thank god. I'm like, I'm so relieved. This was the whole point of all this, right? Yeah. So now I just started thinking, I should really introduce myself to these executives, right? Yes. But first I get I decide I'm gonna get all my camera gear out of my bags, you know, these big lenses and camera bodies, and you know, throw them over my shoulder to show maybe I look legit, maybe I know where I'm wearing.

Matt:

Yeah, I know what I'm doing.

Jon:

Yeah, I'm wearing my my what's now my lucky NASA t-shirt, and I I kind of nervously I'm I'm a bit of an introvert actually, so I nervously walk up to them and I ask them, I uh I introduce myself and I show them my Alaska Airlines video because it shows some of my photography work and my story. It's only 30 seconds, and they said, Those are your photographs in that video? I said, Yeah, and you were supposed to be on that flight, but you're on ours instead, and you flew across the country to be on this flight to take photos of this. I said, Yeah, but I'm in group C and I really need a window seat. And they're like, Come with us. I'm the first one on the plane before they started boarding anyone, and they introduced me to the entire flight crew, and they said, Listen, we need to help this guy out. He's uh flew across the country for this. And they introduced me to all the flight attendants, even both of the pilots. Oh wow, and they said, All right, let's help this guy out. And they said, Pick whatever seat you want. Like, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? This is like dream come true. So now my next goal is to find the cleanest window. Okay, so I'm looking through uh all these aisles, you know, and I run back to the front of the plane and I said, You guys, I can't shoot out of any of these windows. The outside of the plane is dirty, like the outside of the windows are dirty. And the captain overhears me, Captain Jeffrey Jackson, changed my life. He wasn't even supposed to be the captain that day. I found out later, by the way. The captain canceled uh can't uh called in sick, and so he was the fill-in. Thank God, because he was the coolest guy in the world, and um and he said, I might be able to get your window cleaned for you. Why don't you sit on the left side of the plane in real one? So he gets all these cleaning supplies out of the cockpit, and the captain himself gets out of the plane using the moving jetway thing you get on the plane with, you know, and he moves and he reaches over and he washes my window from the outside of the plane for me. I couldn't believe it. And uh, I'm gonna send you that photo too, because if you look behind his hand, that is the Alaska flight. Oh, okay, it was like the most amazing, just weird moment for me because I I immediately thought of this quote by the Dalai Lama. I'm a big fan of his. Yeah, um you should read some of his autobiographies, by the way, it they're amazing. But um his two big passions by The way are astronomy and photography, so of course I like reading stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon:

Yeah. But very curious, curious man. But um anyway, he said in one of his books, um, he said, Remember that sometimes not getting what you want can be a wonderful stroke of luck. You know, here I was literally 20 minutes ago, devastated in on the verge of tears, just thinking it's all over. Yeah. And now all of a sudden I'm getting treated like royalty by the entire flight crew, even some passengers going out of their way to help me.

Matt:

Is cleaning the plane for me.

Jon:

Yeah. Amazing. And so I'm looking at that Alaska flight, thinking, thank God I wasn't on that flight. And uh of course I was stalking their social media later because you know, I want to see what I missed out on. And if I would have gotten what I wanted more than anything and been one of those people and won that contest, that flight was flown over the uh over the ocean. They weren't even over American soil, but they were covered in clouds and fog, and the the girl that beat me in the contest was sat right over the wing, completely obstructed. So if I would have gotten what I wanted, I would have had nothing. And it turns out that our flight was the only commercial flight in the entire continental US that was inside of the moon shadow that year. This was in 2017 before seven years later, the next eclipse. Now it was like a big trend seven years later. Um, so um, so I just can't believe how well this is going, right? The captain's cleaning my window, I'm I'm like in the best seat possible. So now I just started thinking I might as well ask for more. So, you know, it's going so well.

Matt:

You've come this far.

Jon:

Yeah, yeah. What's the harm in asking for a little bit of some ridiculous requests? So I started collaborating collaborating with the captain. I said, okay, look, I've been visualizing this since I was 12 years old. I really want to make it look like we're in space because the moon's shadow is gonna block out the at the atmosphere, so it's the only time you're gonna ever be able to see through the atmosphere in the middle of the daytime is during a total eclipse. But the big thing is the moon shadow is gonna be beneath us, and that's why I want to be on the plane for this. I want to get the moon shadow moving across our planet, so I need to get at least a 180-degree view of the earth, but shooting through this little window, I can't angle the camera and do that. So is there any way while we're in the moon shadow, you could kind of turn the plane around? And he's like, he's laughing right in my face, he's kind of rolling his eyes. This is obviously an absurd request, right? Right, right. He's like, Do you realize I would have to get approval by air traffic control to do that? I was like, I know, I'm actually a sport pilot, I'm embarrassed to even be asking this. And he's like, I mean, considering this historic event, all these folks are so excited, we've got some executives on board. I'll tell you what, I will ask them, but please don't get your hopes up. That's a very slim chance. And I'm like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. So we climb up, we go to 35,000 feet cruising altitude, and it's about five or ten minutes away from totality, where it gets totally dark, where the moon completely blocks the sun. Yeah. And a few minutes before Anne, he comes on to the intercom. He said, Alright, uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh, we're a few minutes away from totality. I'm gonna do something called an S-turn maneuver. And I'm like, I know what an S- turn maneuver is, you know, and I'm like, oh my gosh, is he gonna do it? You know, and I'm I'm sweating and shaking and trying to get my camera gear already. I've been preparing my whole life for this, and I'm I and as soon as he starts banking the plane, I realize he's not turning the plane sharp enough or for enough time. I'm not getting enough of the earth in, the eclipse is too high up in the sky, it's getting warped, and the layers of plastic in the window, it's not it's not just solid glass, you know, there's all these layers of plastic warping the image. Yes, yeah. That's why I couldn't angle the camera myself. Right. And he had he had to angle the camera for me so I could stitch together a bunch of photos together. So obviously it's out of my hands now. He's not turning the plane enough, and I'm gonna try to do my best, right? But all of a sudden, the flight attendants, they're in the jump seat right in front of me, facing me, since I'm in the first row. And they get a call from the captain, and she goes, Um, Jon, the captain wants to know how is that turn? I was like, Are you kidding me? This is actually turned into the private jet I could be able to get around. Yes. I was like, Well, actually, since he's asking, it wasn't good enough. He said it wasn't good enough, it's got to be a much sharper turn. So he gets approval again by air traffic control, like on the fly, and he he climbs up another third uh 4,000 feet all the way to 39,000 feet to avoid the air traffic, and he ended up turning the plane around five times while we're in the moon shadow. And he sent me the flight path later. I'm gonna send that to you as well. And the flight path is so hilarious because you can see the little practice turn in in Oregon, and as soon as we're crossing the border of Oregon and Idaho, that's when he really does it. And the last turn was so sharp. Thank God he did that because that was the the only shot I got of the eclipse itself, because I still was struggling getting the that was obviously the most important puzzle piece of the whole movie. Right, right, right. The actual eclipse. Yes, and we're moving at 500 miles per hour, you know. It's and so the one shot I got, all thanks to flight attendants helping me and pointing it out. Yeah, yeah. Um the one shot I got happened to be, I didn't realize this until going through the images later, but I happened to get what's called the diamond ring moment, the last sliver of sunlight that's shining through the canyon walls of the moon's surface right at the end of the eclipse. Wow. And right before it, you know, all gets all bright again. It lasts for a half second, you know, and that was the only clear shot I got. Was it just felt so meant to be, and it was the clearest weather I ever could have asked for, too, by the way. And um, I'm sure you're gonna reveal the photos people. Yes, um, yes, absolutely. But that river in the in the photo is the snake river, which I'm literally right on the snake river right now. So it's really cool, it's all coming together. I'm and so that river that was also where Evil Knievel had his famous like he almost died, you know, broke like every bone in his body. Um, anyway, so the Snake River, uh that's the border of Oregon and Idaho. So I happened to get the shape of two U.S. states for what ended up being called the Great American Eclipse and the clearest weather ever, you know, especially for the Pacific Northwest. I mean, I just couldn't, it all felt meant to be, and I I personally felt like my dad might have had something something to do with it. He and I were planning on seeing this eclipse together, and unfortunately he passed right before it. But um, so um yeah, that's that's essentially what the story is, and little did I know what I'd be getting myself into, though.

Matt:

Yeah, right, right. Well, we'll get we're gonna get to that in a second. But the photo itself, as people are looking at it, you know, again, you can see the snake river, you see the earth, you see the moon's shadow. Describe that just thin blue line you're you're seeing that's that's happening there across the middle.

Jon:

Yeah, thank you for asking about that, because that is for me such an important, vital part of the photo, because you know, that thin blue line in our atmosphere, that's that's the only thing keeping us alive, you know? And so it's crazy because when you're looking at the image, obviously so the bottom right part of the photo, that dark area in the bottom right, that's the moon shadow beneath us, right? Yeah, but also the moon shadows above us blocking out the atmosphere. So it's kind of like an Oreo cookie, right? Where like the everything that's illuminated is the cream filling. Yeah, so um that's the best analogy I could come up with to try to illustrate it, you know? Yeah, and so so that's you can see through the atmosphere in the middle of the daytime, all because the moon shadows blocking it out for us, and it really makes you realize how thin that atmosphere is. And um, the the so I was originally going to unveil this photo at the Museum of Natural History in New York, and the director, uh Neil deGrasse Tyson's the president there in the in the Hayden Planetarium, and the director of astro visualization at the museum, Carter Emmert. Carter Emmert is the most amazing human. I he's one of my favorite people, and he gave a great TED talk to um, which you should check out. But um he he was one of the first persons to see the image before I unveiled it to people, and which was such an honor of mine because I I was so inspired by his the work he does. He pretty much designs all the planetarium shows around uh the world, actually. Incredible. And um anyway, so he called the image the ladder to space, which uh meant the world to me. He said, I can't believe he even said this, but he said in a lot of ways, this is better than images we actually take from space, which I could never process fully because that's absurd to even say that. But he made a good point. He said, you know, this is at cruising altitude on a commercial airline. We've all been at this altitude, so we can relate and appreciate how close the ground is, but also see how close we actually are to space. We're already in space, right? We're on spaceship Earth, if you will. You know, we're on this floating rock, and the only thing keeping us alive is that little thin blue line in our atmosphere. Wow. I can't tell you how much it work it took to convey that, you know, to get that right. It is um so and so yeah, we yeah, it just makes you realize like how fragile that is, and that we need to do a better job of taking care of the planet so we don't burn ourselves to death. Yeah, no, absolutely.

Matt:

Oh my goodness. No, but man, such a beautiful image and just so rich with so many things. So, I mean, and here here's the here's the the question, last question I would ask about the flight, and then I want us to move into your your the launch of your accidental launch of your public speaking. But I'm just thinking about again, as somebody who has um I've done more video of event I of events I started in sports broadcasting, and I just I know the pressure of capturing a moment and focusing on a moment and like you know, you're you're looking through the viewfinder and you're like, it's on me. I can't miss this. I'm dialed. And I'm just thinking, you're on a plane full of people, executives, they're drinking solar flares, they've got glass. I mean, for you to be present in that moment, like what were you were you able to be present in the moment? I mean, was it one of those things of like on the back end, it was like I just gotta decompress, and like what just happened, or was it like you're actually looking through the window, seeing it and feeling it? Like, what was that like for you?

Jon:

Sadly, no, I couldn't really be in the moment because I was so stressed out. Right. I only had you know, in the US for that eclipse, the maximum totality you got if you were like in the right spot in Wyoming or something, was a roughly two and a half minutes, right? If you were lucky, yeah. We got three minutes of totality because we were flying with the moon shadows, so we had the longest totality, which those 30 seconds were crucial. Every second is so crucial, and so I am just literally utilizing everything I've ever learned in my I don't know, 13-year career at that point, um, you know, in those moments. And I I was just trying to get all the data in. I was trying to get all the puzzle pieces. I ended up taking over 1200 photos in these few moments, and I had three cameras going at the same time, one section cupped here, you know, and all that. And I I only had one moment um where you know I was focusing on doing one thing, and the flight attendants were like, Jon, look at look up there. The eclipse is right there in the center, and um, and as soon as I look through the window, I see it right there, and it was my first time seeing it with my naked eye. Yeah, and yeah, something I always dreamed of looking at. I mean, when you're in, I should I I should clarify um because I'm sure there's some listeners um that might not know the difference between a hundred percent totality during any a total eclipse and even ninety nine percent totality, it's literally a night and day difference. Yeah, for example, my nephew who I stayed with the night before, I'm like, man, what are you guys gonna do for the eclipse? They said, Well, we're at like 97%, so we'll just watch it from our backyard, you know? How convenient. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Literally, if you drive south just like a few miles, you will see something that will change your life. I'm telling you, it is truly indescribable. I mean, when you're in the actual totality zone inside the moon shadow, you take your eclipse glasses off, and you can actually look at the sun with your naked eye, and you see these incre incredible prominences shooting out, and um, you can see the sun's corona, the atmosphere of the sun, and like it's it's unlike you. I mean, it's like looking at the eye of God. I mean, you just can't even describe it. Photos do not cannot do it justice. Yeah, and so I'm seeing that for my first time, and I I was so awestruck in all sense of the word, awestruck, that I almost forgot to take the photo because I was so just like captivated. Yes, and um, and so that was finally I was like, oh god, yeah, and so as soon as soon as I take that one shot, the only shot I got, that was the last moment right before the end of it when I got the diamond ring moment. So amazing. Yeah, it was it was truly remarkable. So I encourage people. This sounds weird coming from a photographer, but I encourage everybody to go travel to an eclipse. Um, there's gonna be one going through Spain and Iceland um next August. There's another one the year after in 2027 going through the Egypt. That's gonna be very cool. But I encourage people, I know it's very tempting, especially in today's world. We all have cameras with our phones, you know, which are great cameras now. But like, please just set your camera aside and just enjoy the moment, you know.

Matt:

Like, yeah, there are people like Jon out there shooting it for you. Just you get the photo later on.

Jon:

Yeah, I'm sacrificing my time to do that. I I dream of one eclipse that I'm not gonna photograph so I could just enjoy it, you know. And so I just really encourage people to first of all go out of your way and travel to totality. It is it puts most people to tears. I mean, my nephew ended up waking up his, I think they were like three and five-year-old daughters at the time, woke him up at four in the morning to drive south, you know, to beat the traffic. I mean, yeah, it's and they they left me a voicemail, so by the time I landed in St. Louis, they were in tears like wow, thank you, because this was unlike anything I could have imagined.

Matt:

So, okay, last last thing, I don't want to miss this, because I think when people hear you took several photos, you stitched them together, they might be thinking like six, ten photos. No, no, no, no. How many photos did you take and stitch together for this finished masterpiece?

Jon:

So total photos I took were about twelve hundred photos. I didn't use all of them. Sure. Um I had to use like just like a small section because even though so the the the window in the plane was still very hard to capture out of. So even though it's even though the captain washed my window, you know, there's still a lot of inconsistencies and smudges and stuff. So and that's one of the reasons too, that I even though it's a wide-angle photo, it's almost a 180-degree shot, every single photo was taken zoomed in at you know up to 200 millimeters.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jon:

So yeah, that was so I can get all that detail, but also the more zoomed in you are, the less because of the um the depth of field, uh the blemishes on the window vanish almost fully because it's focused, you know, on that. So you understand that. It's kind of hard to explain that. No, no, no, yep, I get it. Um so I took all of these photos. I just wanted to get all the data in the whole earth and the moon shadow and everything, and then once I felt like okay, I'm pretty sure I got that, then I then my sights were toward the sky for the eclipse itself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Jon:

Um, and so I I never counted how many I ended up using. Um I my guess would be around 800, probably. Um, that's total for the mosaic, and I was bracketing seven different exposures, plus or minus ten stops for each image. I mean, I was I bought the fastest memory cards possible to process all the the raw footage, you know, back to back to back for for three minutes. So yeah. So yeah, it was uh it was a lot, and I I thought I could maybe quickly piece this all together to get it online as soon as possible, you know. In today's social media world, it's like gotta get it out right now. Yeah, but yeah, I ended up taking all year piecing all these together. I was rushing to get it done in time for the one-year anniversary when I was planning on unveiling the eclipse to the public, so and I got it done just in time.

Matt:

Yeah, amazing. So let's let's talk about that. So you're a couple weeks out from your unveiling. You are also one of Twitter's corporate photographers, right? You're working in a Used to be, sorry, yep, used to be. You're working an event for them where they've got 5,000 people that they've brought in for this event. Um so it's share, share that moment. You're just there to do a job, you're there to take some more photos, but a whole lot of things happen that really flip the script for you.

Jon:

Yeah, this this moment, man, changed my whole life. So, so yeah, I it was the biggest event in Twitter's history, 5,000 employees from all around the world coming together for a giant company All Hand and week-long event, and my jobs to document all that. It was very stressful, a lot of pressure. I had to hire, you know, a team of photographers to be in multiple places at once. And the big surprise, everything was surprised for the most part for the employees, but I had to know what all these surprises were. So I'm on a conference call with the Twitter's event team, you know, and they said, okay, the big surprise at the end of the week is Elon Musk is gonna be the surprise closing keynote speaker. Now, this is years ago, back when everybody had Twitter version that like Elon, a different version of Elon Musk. You know, before all the drama when he took it over and fired everybody, you know. So, and I also was a big fan, obviously, as a space and rocket enthusiast, you know, and the whole year I'm working on this image, it's so funny because I was reading this biography about Elon written by Ashley Vance, and Southwest Airlines is actually mentioned in Elon's life story many times. Um, because back in 2008, during the recession, his rockets kept blowing up, his Tesla cars were also melting or blowing up, you know, and like all of his investors were bailing out. He he was losing all of his money, and so he started flying Southwest Airlines instead of his private jet because he couldn't afford anymore to go to his headquarters, just like how I flew Southwest instead of a private jet, you know. Uh, we have a lot in common. You and Eli. No, but um, and so Southwest Airlines was actually um part of their original mission statement. SpaceX's first mission statement since day one, according to Ashley Vance's biography, was to one day become the Southwest Airlines of space in terms of affordable space travel. And I'm like, how crazy is that? My photo is literally the Southwest Airlines in space. Yeah, yeah, you know, because it looks like I'm in space. Everybody online thought it was a fake image because it's like you're in space, you know, like you couldn't have been on a on an airplane. That was the whole point of all of it. Uh, and so I thought, man, I would love to get some kind of connection to Elon. I think maybe he would appreciate this story and how like Starburn and perse how I persevered, you know, and all that, but also the the Southwest Airlines tie in. And all of a sudden I find out two weeks before the anniversary of the uh the eclipse, when I'm planning on unveiling it, uh, I find out he's gonna be the keynote speaker at this event. And I know how my job goes. It's gonna be my job, most likely, to be backstage in the green room, taking photos of Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, hanging out with Elon, you know, getting photos of them together. So I know for a fact I'm gonna have this private private audience with him. Yeah. But sorry, you know, if I get lucky, if I'm lucky I get two minutes to talk with him, right? It's not enough time to actually tell him this story. So I thought, you know, maybe I should write him a letter. And so, but I was like, man, I would love to give him a print of this. Maybe I'll even give him print number one, the very first artist proof of this, which, you know, is special, could be valuable in a lot of ways. Um, and so, but I didn't want to give him this big print, but I didn't want to give him a little tiny print either. So I developed this weird-looking print that was uh printed really high quality, prints prints with laser instead of ink, burns onto crystal and UV protected acrylic. And I I I went all out with this.

Matt:

Um and you're not handing Elon Musk a four by six, you're you're going, you're gonna get it right.

Jon:

Yeah, yeah. So, but it it was created in this weird way where it folds together in thirds, kind of like a letter you get in the mail. So, dear Elon, you open up the first flap and there's my letter to him with the story and all this, and when you open it up all the way and lay it flat, it the seams snap together with these small magnets, and it's almost perfectly seamless. So it's a decent sized print. Okay. Yeah, I I went way Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put way too much thought and money into this. I worked with the best framer, Lamont Photographics in Manhattan, and I went all out, I got it done just in time, flew out to San Francisco from New York for the event, and the whole week I'm just kind of rehearsing in my head, like, what am I gonna say to Elon when I meet him? Yeah, and then the final day arrives, and it's about an hour before Elon's supposed to show up, and the CMO, Leslie Berlin, she's the sweetest girl in the world, she walks up to me and she said, Jon, I have bad news. Elon Musk just canceled. I'm like, Are you kidding me? I'm like, man, this felt so meant to be, and then like I was so annoyed, and I'm like, why do you have to cancel, man? I thought like this was gonna like I was so excited about it, you know. And so yeah, like what in the world am I gonna do with this print now? But uh Jack Dorsey, I didn't know Jack too well over the years just from working here and there and passing and yeah, taking photos of him, yeah. And and so um, but Jack was on stage the majority of this week, and this was a very private event. The press didn't even know this event was going on, and so he's just being very transparent and open in front of his company, talking about their weaknesses, how can they improve, and how to keep the world united and connected, and talking about oneness and connectedness, and uh all these concepts that I'm really passionate about, having this like cosmic perspective on the world. And I just kept thinking, you know what? I think Jack might really appreciate this image and this story. I think I want to give this this first artist proof to Jack instead. You know, they've been my client all these years, this would be a special little way to say thank you. Yeah, and so I go upstairs to this giant empty ballroom to get this quiet moment, you know, and I decided to write this letter to Jack instead. And as soon as I write the name Jack, which was so weird because that was my dad's name, um, as soon as I write his name, Jack walks into the ballroom and he's by himself. I never see him by himself, and he's walking right past me, and I'm like, Hey Jack, and he goes, Yeah, what's up? I'm like, That's so weird. I was about to write you a letter, and as soon as I write your name, you walk in the room, and he goes, Is everything okay? And I said, Yeah, here, open this. And he opens up, you know, it's heavy, you know, it's on mounted on metal and all this, and he opens it up, he goes, What is this? I said, Do you remember the great American eclipse last year? He goes, Uh yeah, it was the biggest trending conversation in Twitter's history. I mean, it like blew up Twitter.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Jon:

I'm like, wow, I I never realized that. Well, I took this photo from an airplane and he goes, Wait, this is a photograph? You you took this? How did you get this photo? It looks like you're in space. And so he wants to know the whole story. All the details. I tell him the whole story, right? That I just shared with you. Yeah. And he gets he gets real quiet at the end and goes, Okay, here's what's gonna happen. In 45 minutes or so, I would like you to replace Elon's keynote. I was like, I'm sorry, what? He goes, I want you to show this photo and tell this story in front of my entire company. Do you think you can handle that? And in my head, I'm thinking, hell no, I can't handle that. Like, are you kidding me? I've never given a speech in my life, and my first speech ever is gonna be in front of 5,000 people without any rehearsal or preparation whatsoever, and replacing Elon Musk. Are you kidding me? So I'm like freaking out, right?

Mason:

Yeah, but this is the CEO of the company, you know.

Jon:

I'm like trying to look all confident, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I can do that, sure. Unbelievable. All of a sudden, like he sends the thousands of people out in the commons area so we could work with the producers, and you know, they've been planning every minute of this for the last year and a half, and all of a sudden we're blowing up the whole show. He wants he wants me to show some behind-the-scenes photos, you know, and I run up to my hotel room to get my laptop and get a high-res image of the eclipse and try to get it on the screen, and it all happens so fast, right? Like, before I know it, uh Jack's up on stage introducing me and gave this ridiculous introduction, like, this is bigger than all of us, and you know, and and he gave away the surprise too. He said, So Elon was gonna be a surprise closing keynote right now, and he just cancelled an hour ago. So he's disappointing everybody. Right. So instead, here's this guy. Here's Jon. Instead, here's this guy, our photographer. He's like, How many of you know photographer Jon? And like three people are like, Woo! You know, the events team know me, but you know, and I am literally shaking. I've never been so terrified in my life, and I'm like, oh my god, what did I just agree to? Like, what is about to happen? You know, I'm used to being behind the camera, you know, like I'm my own little introvert, I'm in my own bubble, like I'm the observer, you know. Yeah, anyway, so I get up on stage, you know, and I'm like, okay, they say you're supposed to imagine the audience in their underwear, you know, and I was like, that's not working. Like none of the techniques I've heard work. And I get up on stage and the lights are super bright, so you can't quite see the whole room, which is helpful because it doesn't feel quite as daunting. But but I see Jack right there in the front row, Jack and Leslie, the CMO, right there in front of me, and I'm like, okay, all you're doing is just telling Jack the story like you just did. You know, no big deal. I'm really trying to play these mental gymnastics in my head. Yeah. Um, but it somehow worked because all of my nerves just suddenly vanished, and I just became so present and calm and collected in that moment. I became so connected with the audience, and we ended up having this beautiful conversation essentially, and it turned into the craziest moment. It was like everybody just started crying, and it was like multiple standing ovations. I mean, it was ridiculous, and everybody's like they were crying and they they were making me cry, couldn't even talk anymore. I mean, it was just the most beautiful moment of my life, and it changed my life. This is how I accidentally became a keynote speaker now. So unbelievable. And little did I know that I'm like on the road like full-time now, giving keynotes for healthcare workers and leadership and CEO conferences, and I mean it's just it's I it took a lot of getting used to, you know, at first, but I love doing this now more than anything in the world. I this is a a passion I never even knew I had that is incredibly rewarding to be able to I you know I realized like all I love telling stories, I just usually do it through my photography. So this way I can take but photography is a really lonely journey. I mean, yeah, especially astrophotography where you have to be out in the middle of nowhere, yeah, you know, away from light pollution to get photos of the galaxy and whatnot. And then when you're done taking photos alone in the middle of nowhere, you're in front of your computer alone working on the images, you know. So um, so it's really incredible to take these isolating moments and be able to have uh the privilege to be on a platform and to share what it means to me, and and and it's been really inspiring for people. I never had any clue that the story or any of these stories that I share on stage could be inspiring for people, but um no, it just had this I love that I love a huge sense of responsibility, it feels like so yeah. So you never know. Back to that Dalai Lama quote sometimes not getting what you want can be a wonderful stroke of luck because thank God Elon cancelled that day. I was devastated and so heartbroken, but oh my god, it changed my whole life.

Matt:

Yeah, you know amazing. No, and and when you and I when you and I met and we got to spend a little bit of time together just a few weeks ago and you you shared this story with me again, like I I I understand the pressure of these events. I also understand the pressure of what it means to stand on a stage and speak to people. And as you're telling me, like, this is the first time you've ever done this. I I'm like, what so I went and found the video on YouTube the next day and I watched it. And man, I'm telling you, everything you described, you feel it in the video. You feel the audience just tracking with you and just dialed in. And I think in some ways, you know, Jack did such an unbelievable favor to you in setting up the talk the way that he did, because it was like the audience was with you the second you stood on the stage, and then it was like you did such an amazing and beautiful job telling your story and just so humble and and and just hey, I just I just lived through this experience. And I and I heard you um on another thing, share, like you and you weren't even sharing the story of this photo until you're kind of deep into the editing and you shared with some family and friends, and they were like, wait, what? Jon, you need to tell this story to people. So I think just to see the power of that and see that room respond and the standing ovations and the tears, you you definitely felt it. And then Jack gets back up after you're done and he then relates what this means to Twitter as a company and to the group, but you know, using your photo is this unbelievable teaching message. So man, just so cool to see somebody who, like you said, you've you've kind of maybe hid behind the camera for a number of years of your life, and you got this moment to now elevate and share your story in such a cool way. So really, really cool.

Jon:

Yeah, it's it's I pinch myself all the time, and I it yeah, like what you said earlier. I never thought anything special about the story. I was just I'm such a stubborn person. Like when I like have this like vision for an image, like I have to freaking get it captured. And so I was just that day on the plane, I'm just like trying to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Yeah, and so which is so weird because I'm not really an assertive person, but first I have this like other side to me, like when I'm focused on like wanting to achieve this thing, it's like Yeah, you're gonna fight through everything. What's the harm in asking? Yeah, right. What's the and people want to help too? Like, what you know I never could have achieved this photo on my own. This was all thanks to these silent heroes in the airplane that day, like these these flight attendants and the captain and the first officer, everybody, but even some passengers, these perfect strangers that went way out of their way to help another stranger achieve their dream, their goal to no benefit of their own. Yeah, yeah, and it goes to show that passion is contagious, curiosity is contagious. So, like when you if you have a dream or a goal, like don't coop it up and keep it inside of you, like share it with others and be like, this is what I want to do. Yes, and you never know how somebody can help. And people want to help, like, we're living in this horrible divided country right now, and we are 10 we tend to see the worst in others right now, but like I still believe we are we're all inherently good, like like people want to see each other shine and to achieve their dreams, especially if they can help out. You never know who might know somebody, who might know somebody, you know, that that can help you, you know, and and so yeah, so I really encourage people now to um to really look back on what are some dreams that you have, or maybe you had this sense of curiosity that has dwindled, you know, because we all were filled with curiosity at one point in our lives, yeah. Like every kid is filled with curiosity, right? They're all asking, why, why, or what is this, you know, and so as we get older, most of us start losing that. And you asked earlier about my dad, you know, that sense of curiosity. And like I was fortunate enough to have a dad that I looked up to. He had his faults, of course, like everybody does, he's a human being, but he was just filled with curiosity all the way through his 80s. He was he was like this, he had this little kid mentality, and I think that's the most important thing you can do in life. And it's not just it doesn't affect your personal life, yeah, not just that, but in your work life as as well. Like if you're a leader, if you're a CEO or you work in C-suite, or if you're a manager in some way, if you manage a team or something, it if you have that sense of curiosity and you're genuinely curious to hear the points of view of the people that work with you, yeah, that is everything. I mean, that is like that's what that's what creates this culture of curiosity in the workplace where you invite other people to share their thoughts and ideas, you know, and somebody that might be a brand employee, like, hey, which you're brand new at this company, you know, what what's your perspective on on our company from an outside view? You know, how do you think we can do better? What are some of our weaknesses? Like, perspective is everything, we all have our you unique perspective. And I I always talk about like you know, the power of zooming out and seeing the bigger picture of things, you know, like problems and obstacles seem much smaller. Like my my vision for that eclipse photo was so broad that like all these obstacles were just a means to an end. Like, I was when you're curious enough and you're per when you persevere enough, like you find a way. You know, there's always a way around these problems, these dead ends. So anyway, sorry, I'm going on myself.

Matt:

Oh man, I love it. Oh man, I could listen to this all day, seriously. Your your stories and then just some of the your your thoughts and philosophy. And I mean, I do. I want to, as we kind of wrap this up here, I I do I want to take it back to that moment for you on on the Southwest Plain. And like you said, like here we are living in this more divided than ever time. Um you know, at least in our lifetimes, probably the most that we've all it for personally felt this like pressure and this tension. And yet I think about this moment, you on this plane, and in that moment, you're you and all these people are part of this amazing moment in history, and it's like the Republican and Democrat thing doesn't come up and doesn't matter, right? The the your background, your religion, your sexuality, your none of that matters. It's just the it's just humanity, humans coming together, sharing this beautiful thing, like socioeconomic status doesn't matter. The next Elon Musk might be sitting on the plane, you know, with you, and it just none of that matters. You just connect, and I think, man, how much better off could we be if we could just realize that we're so much more alike than we are different, right? And and there's so much more inside of us when it comes to our our dreams and our hopes and our fears and our struggles that it's like we share this like human experience, and if we could just engage in that, um man, how much better off would we be. So gosh, what a beautiful picture!

Jon:

That was beautifully said, you should be a speaker, Jon.

Matt:

Thank you so so much for coming and and just being so generous with your time and and you know, dialing in from the road with us and giving us such a great perspective, some amazing things to think about, an opportunity for us to just take a pause in our own life and zoom out and look for that perspective. Um so I a couple things. Number one, Jon has so many more amazing stories, and I'm telling you, there's even another incredible story for the next eclipse. But we're gonna hit pause today, and uh Jon has already agreed to come back to Stories That Move. Uh in the future, we're gonna reconnect at some point down the road and have him come back and share the next eclipse stories, and who knows what happens between now and then and some of the stories that uh he lives and the people that he meets along the way. Um because yeah, it's uh it's literally amazing to spend a couple hours with Jon and hear his story. So so we'll have you come back. But in the meantime, for people who are just, hey, I just want to see some more of this guy's work, connect with some things. Your your Eclipse uh photo is actually available. You can buy a print through your website too. Help people connect with you. What's the best way through social media through your website?

Jon:

Yeah, yeah, thanks. Um, yeah, I the Eclipse Photo is the the first photo that I released as what's called an open edition as opposed to like limited editions, like my other artwork. So we ordered thousands of them at once to make them as affordable as possible. So it's a it's a good size print, 24 by 36 inch print. That's $100. That's a photographic print. So normally a size photo like that would be like a $500 print. So I'm really excited that we were able to make that work with this printer. Um, so yeah, you can get those just on my website, which is my name.com, johncarmichael.com. No. Jon without the H G away. Yes. Yeah. The guy with an H that owns that um is uh 85-year-old man in the UK that just won't give up his his his websites. I love it. I hey all respect. Good for him, good for Jon H. Yeah, good for him. Yeah, exactly. Um but anyway, so uh yeah, and then there's there's um you know some of my talks there. Uh if you're an event coordinator or if you work for a company that does events and stuff, I I'm so passionate about um speaking, you know, as a keynote speaker for events, so reach out anytime if you'd like. Um yeah, and as far as socials, you know, Instagram, uh, Twitter, I will always call it Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but uh as long as you just type in my name, you'll find me. My my Instagram is Jon underscore Carmichael. So perfect. Um and then I'm planning on starting a YouTube channel. I my YouTube channel, I have a bunch of my speeches on there and my speaking reel that we just came out with. But um, I'm gonna, you know, I'm on the road in my van, obviously, so um I'm gonna try to start telling some stories along my journey. I just woke up to like a bald eagle flying around this morning. It was so awesome. So um but also I want to share some of the challenges because my heater broke and it was 13 degrees out, and I had a lot of frozen nights, you know, so there's some challenges along the way too. So if anybody wants to try out van life, I will I will give you the best advice I can.

Matt:

Oh, so cool, so cool. Well, Jon, thanks again, man. And uh really just yeah, appreciate you and your story. Can't wait to uh connect with you again here in uh hopefully the the not too distant future.

Jon:

Yeah, thanks, Matt. I really appreciate you having me, and thanks for all your time too when I was out there in Indiana. And I your studio is awesome. I love what you guys are all about. Stories that move. That's that's exactly it. Storytelling is so powerful, so I really appreciate you guys having me.

Matt:

Awesome, thank you. And to all of our listeners and viewers, and hey, let me underscore this one more time get back on YouTube and watch some of this and check out some of Jon's images. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you again next time in Stories That Move. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Stories That Move, brought to you by DreamOn Studios.

Mason:

Make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode. And remember, if you or your organization have a story you're eager to share with the world, DreamOn Studios is here to bring that story to life.

Matt:

Don't hesitate to reach out. You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or visit our website at dreamonstudios.io. We understand how overwhelming it can be trying to bring your vision and story to life, but that's why we exist. And we've walked alongside hundreds of clients doing the great thing.

Mason:

We believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move, and to make a difference. Let's make yours hurt. Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling the stories that matter. Take care, everyone. We'll see you next time at Stories That Matter.