Photographer Jamie Walter had 2 minutes and 18 seconds to make sure this shot happened. In April of 2024, a total solar eclipse passed over his home state of Maine, and he was there. 

But to learn how it became a reality, we need to go back a decade. 

In March of 2015, Canadian photographer Rueben Krabbe traveled to Svalbard, Norway to capture skiers laying turns in the path of totality. Those photographs set Jamie’s imagination ablaze. The native Mainer learned that another eclipse would someday pass over, of all places, his beloved Sugarloaf ski area, and the idea had been circling in his mind ever since.

Timing is everything—to a point. Except with an eclipse, it's not only timing that plays a huge role, but also location. “The plan evolved over the years, and sat on the backburner mostly because the weather in April in the Northeast is notoriously overcast, like nearly 70% of days in the mountains are cloudy.” It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before the eclipse that the forecast was beginning to look promising. “That’s when I kicked into gear and really started planning.” 

Luck plays a huge role in these kinds of situations. The fact that this particular eclipse would pass over his hometown hill in the middle of the afternoon, on a sunny day during spring ski season, is monumental in and of itself. And then it’s still not a gimme. 

“I went up to Sugarloaf nine days ahead of time to do my initial scout. It was one of the last sunny days before it was going to snow, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to see the sun and visualize the line, and find the right place and time.” 

Jamie needed a certain pitch and perspective because the sun would be fairly high in the sky at 3:30 p.m. when the eclipse would take place. “I needed a steep trail so the skier would be above my head as much as possible, to get them as close to the sun as possible. I also needed to get as much distance between me and the skier as possible, and I needed the background behind them to be relatively clear.” 

The week leading up to the eclipse was trial and error testing, organizing gear, going through the motions of what settings to use, researching time management down to the second, tinkering with settings, what flashes, what other cameras beyond his primary. Constant shifting, recalibrating in the hopes he’d done his due diligence.

Then April 8 arrived. True to the forecast, the day was sunny and crystal clear. “I remember being super stressed,” he said. “I didn’t eat much. I was kind of a nervous wreck.” Then came the first challenge of the day: traffic. “It was one of the few locations in Maine that could accommodate a large amount of people for the path of totality (about 100 miles wide), so there was gridlock by 9 in the morning. It was insane.”

Nevertheless, they got to the base of the lifts. He brought four skiers and one rider with him, not only to shuttle all the gear they’d brought, but so he’d have enough talent to shoot without needing anyone to hike for a second lap. That math checks out when you’ve got less than two and a half minutes to shoot.

“It took me about two hours to set up my flashes on the hill, dial in settings I wanted to use, get time-lapse cameras in play, as well as a high-end Red video camera with a super telephoto lens just to capture the eclipse.” As the eclipse got closer, Walter and crew took turns wearing glasses to look at it, watching the progress of the moon slowly occlude the sun. 

“As soon as it hit, I took a couple test frames, made sure all my exposures were correct. I called in skiers one by one. Mac, my little brother, is in the Stio photo.” One friend, Matt Tinker, wasn’t so lucky, as the flashes didn’t fire on his attempts. Nonetheless, four of his five friends walked with photos. 

Jamie had experienced a previous eclipse in 2017 while sitting in an Illinois cornfield—part of his research at the time. Blown away by that experience, he was aware, unlike the others, what was in store. “I knew what was coming in a way that I don’t think they could’ve anticipated at first. That was cool because when the eclipse actually came and went, to see everyone’s raw emotions to it—to stand in the shadow of the moon—it’s a really powerful, transforming thing.”