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The Pierre T. Lambert Podcast Transcripts: Jessica Moore on How Photography NFTs Changed Her Life, Storm Chasing for Photos and Her Battle Against Autoimmune Disease

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Jessica Moore is a meteorologist and a professional photographer. Her passion for storms stems from her childhood in Colorado Springs. She has chased storms across the U.S. for a decade, creating wonderful art from her storm photos. 

Jessica has worked for WeatherNationTV as a field correspondent for over a year, and her extreme weather footage has been seen on The Weather Channel, ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, and more.

Jessica shares stories about how it feels to chase storms and her ongoing battle with. Discover how the turn of events and her health led her to NFTs and find success in putting her art in this digital space.

In this episode, she discusses her experience navigating the NFT space, the direction of her upcoming stormscapes, and her favorite shooting gear!

Transcripts may contain a few typos. With some episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be challenging to catch minor errors. 

Please Enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Clever, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Pierre Lambert: Good morning podcast, and welcome to a new episode on the Pierre T. Lambert Show. I am Pierre, your host. And today, we have another amazing guest. And my guest today is Jessica Moore. She is a meteorologist, a professional photographer based out of Colorado Springs in Colorado, and she is a native from that beautiful state. And I've got to discover her work through Twitter and through the NFT space because she's been taking incredible storm photos, it really caught my attention. And after some digging, I realized that she was working in that field. She went and pursued a college degree at Mississippi State University, Broadcast, and Operational Meteorology. And that passion around meteorology blended perfectly, in my opinion, with photography because of the shots, and we'll link everything in the show notes. Those shots are incredible and bring so much power to them. It's like capturing the power of restorative in one place. I want to dig into those stories in this episode. Also, something that's very important is that Jessica's work has been shared across all channels, whether it's on national TV, whether it's on the internet, you might have seen her photos already, especially if you're interested in epic storms, thunderstorms, and anything around that. And I think Jessica is going to tell us a little more in a few seconds, but welcome to the show, Jessica. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm excited about this. 

Jessica Moore: Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm looking forward to it.

Pierre Lambert: Jessica. All right. We'll just start right into the eye of the storm,  in a way. I want to hear about one of those experiences. Why don't you tell us about what happens when you're shooting and was there a specific time when you were shooting one of those storms where you're like, “This is the perfect shot I need.” 

Jessica Moore: Yeah. Those moments, shooting around a storm, is just so exciting and dynamic and intense because everything is happening so quickly. The storm is always in motion. So, that means you have to be always in motion. There's not always very much time to stand in one place and set up a shot. Sometimes you're right in the path of the storm, and it's coming right at you. So, you have to get your shots super, super fast. You have to pretty much already have your settings perfect. There's not a whole lot of time to fine-tune your settings. You just get out of the car, and you're fighting all the elements; you're fighting the wind, the rain, hail. Sometimes you're dodging hailstones just to get that. And then get in your car, and dart away before the storm takes you over. So, it's very intense, and if you look at most of my shots, almost all of them are shot handheld for that reason. Because you really have to be constantly mobile when you're shooting these storms. So, there's no time to set up tripods generally when you're close to storms. You just have to get out, fire away, several shots, and keep moving. So, it's always very intense in the heat of the moment, most of the time when those storms are moving, you know, 20 to 30 miles an hour or more. There have definitely been some really intense moments. There was a particular storm I chased near Imperial, Nebraska, which is far from Southwestern Nebraska, and the storm initially kind of developed in Northeast Colorado. And that's where I was initially tracking it and kind of moving along with it. And as I continued east with this storm, I started to realize actually the storm that's behind me. 

Pierre Lambert: For those of you guys, if you can see, or otherwise we'll drill in, this show series is really incredible. I caught it from the moment we got on the call. I was like, “Wow. That piece is epic behind you.”

Jessica Moore: So that is it. That's Imperial. So, I'm continuing east with this storm, and I'm realizing it's starting to get these sculpted layers. Like you're seeing their individual layers in the clouds, and I'm realizing this is about to be just a massive storm. And so, I know that I need to get further out east ahead of it so that I can really photograph the whole structure of the storm. This is why I also shoot with a super-wide lens so that I get the full scope of the storm in the frame. So, I'm actually pretty close to that storm. It looks like I'm a good distance, but I'm still fairly close to it. But then that storm got closer to me, I waited until it was nearly right overhead. And I got some of the most insane, supercell structure shots that I've ever captured because you have this whole mothership of a storm just hovering above your head. And so while I'm taking these photos, I'm blown away with my jaw hanging open, that I'm witnessing what I'm seeing. And all at the same time, the wind is howling into the storm, so loudly it's like howling through the power lines above me in a way that sounds haunting. It almost sounds like something not from this earth, this haunting howling sound. The wind is screaming through the power lines, 40, 50 miles an hour, just being sucked into the storm. It's like the storm is inhaling, and you're right in its breath. And it's like almost trying to suck you in while you're shooting the storm. There's nothing, really, that can describe how it feels when you're standing in that close of a proximity to a storm that powerful. And it feels like it's going to sweep you up at any moment, but you're just shooting away and shooting away. I literally was frozen in place. I couldn't make myself move because it was like an out-of-body experience. Just watching the storm hovering right above my head. That was by far one of my most insane, adrenaline-pumping storm intercepts that I've ever had in my ten years of chasing storms.

Pierre Lambert: A lot to unpack. Yeah. I think we're going to go back to some terminology also, so you can explain what they are. But I want to know, did you escape? How does that work with that limit? Like, when do you know you're in danger? When you know you're not with those.

Jessica Moore:  I knew I was in danger. I mean, I knew that when I'm in that close of a proximity to a storm, I always have multiple, quote-unquote, we call them “escape routes.” So, that means I'm either going to go north, south, or east out ahead of the storm. So for this particular instance, I knew that I was going to jump north as soon as I got into the storm's core, which is basically where the heaviest rain is falling. And so, as soon as that storm came over me, I just jumped north into the storm’s core. At least there, I know that, like, tornadoes generally not going to form north of the storm. So, that's, kind of, my safe zone by jumping north into the storm's core. If I had gone south, I likely would've driven into that storm that was about to produce a tornado and actually produced a tornado as it was crossing the north and south highway that I was on. So if I had gone south, I could have possibly driven right into it. A lot of it is just truly situational awareness and experience with being that close to storms and watching how the storm is moving and preparing based on kind of these little clues that the storm gives you on how it's moving and what it's doing. If it's cycling—cause if it's cycling, that means it might be trying to wrap up again and maybe produce another tornado. But you have some time because that's not going to produce one right now. So, you have to identify certain visual cues by looking at storms, to know where you need to be, to photograph them.

Pierre Lambert: Wow. I'm fascinated by that. When I was a kid, I used to watch this documentary, as you know, is like storm chasers, all like meteorology things. So, I'm a big fan of that space. How do you decide what landscape you're going to shoot that storm? Are you always trying to find, let's say, something very plain because I drove through? I think it was Utah, and I had never been in that environment where you could see literally a thunderstorm from miles away. And it's incredible. And you're like, “What is this?” Can you get the same effects if you're in the mountains, or do you have to be in those like super flat landscapes? 

Jessica Moore: Typically your, landscapes that you're working with storm chasing are typically going to be flat. Typically, going to be in the plains because that's where you're seeing most storms, as in the Southern, Central, and Northern Plains of the United States. That's where we get most of our tornadoes. And if we can get them, obviously in the Eastern U.S., Southeastern U.S., they can happen anywhere, really. But typically, the standard area for chasing storms is in the plains. So, plains are typically very wide open, very flat. It’s really hard to find a good foreground because you're in very rural, desolate areas. Perfect example with those shots behind me; there's not always a whole lot to work with in terms of foreground. You often just have farmland. So, if you can't find a windmill or a grain mill. Sometimes I like to see if I can find old abandoned farmhouses, things like that. But sometimes, with storm chasing, there's not a whole lot to work with. So, you just have to work with the landscape that you're given. To me, the storm is the photo. So, you don't really need much else to add to it. It's like literally the whole frame is almost filled with that storm, and you have a little bit of landscape at the bottom, you know? Just some wide flat prairie. And that's really all you need, honestly, for me. Because don't feel that foreground is always that necessary when you have something that is visually impressive in the sky. Do you know what I mean?

Pierre Lambert: Yeah, it's almost like you flipped the landscape, and then here got your mountain, which is that crazy storm. Then the sky, the blue sky or, green sky. 

Jessica Moore: And that's funny you say that because that's literally what I base my NFT collections around, is called stormscapes. So, we're not photographing landscapes here. We're photographing stormscapes because it's truly like the atmospheres' art. It really is the art of the atmosphere. And so, that's amazing to me.

Pierre Lambert: And I'll speak for many who might come from Europe, where we don't really have those stormscapes. We don't see it the same way it usually arrives at us. And the first few times I would see those images, I was like, “Is that even real? Is this real life?” Living in Chicago got me to get to know those because if you stay up by the lakefront, you have those massive clouds coming in sometimes. And if you're a little bit Northeast, you can actually see the city, the background with the lake. And it was like clouds come in. And you're like, “Is there an alien spaceship, or what is happening?” You know? I want to know what came first meteorology, or that passion for shooting, chasing, obviously the storms? What came first, and how did you get together? What's your original story around that? 

Jessica Moore: So I've been literally obsessed with weather and photography since I was a little girl. I've literally had always had a camera in my hand. Truly, since elementary school, I've always had a camera, you know? Whether it was a little crappy little point and shoot or little cameras. Just shooting things has always been a part of who I am and something that comes naturally to me. You know, photography is my way of experiencing the world around me. On a deeper level, it helps me to quiet my mind and slow down and take in the world around me and find beauty in unexpected places. And then weather, you know, I kind of grew up in a family of weather nuts. We all are crazy about the weather. So, I had my uncle teaching me how to read the radar when I was a little girl. And then I had my dad telling me stories about how he and his brothers watched tornadoes from their rooftop in Dallas, Texas. Growing up where literally you watched a tornado suck up a 7-eleven gas station sign just down the block from them, and they were watching it on their roof. I think it was always both of these passions were always ingrained in me because I was surrounded by them. Growing up, my whole family, every time a thunderstorm would roll through, we would go out into the garage and just watch it. And literally, pull up camping chairs and just watch the storms. It was that we are always excited to watch it. And so that kind of progressed into my high school and college years, early college years. I was always out looking at the clouds and starting to study meteorology on my own accord, but I didn't really know too much yet. It took a while for me to find my path with meteorology. I'm 36, and I just graduated last year with my meteorology degree. But before that, I was chasing storms since my daughter was a year old. As soon as I could get out of the house and chase storms, I was chasing storms. It was funny because I actually started shooting storms while she was a newborn. I started shooting them from our balcony in Denver. That's where I got my first lightning shots. That's where I started to really learn a lot more about meteorology. But through my years of chasing, I want to be a meteorologist; this is what I want to do while I was in school. I was able to get a couple of pretty cool gigs working for the media. One, in particular, being a field correspondent for the National Television Network, which was really a great experience overall. That gave me a lot of experience with talking on air in front of an audience and talking about the weather and being out in the field, doing what I love. Because there are a lot of meteorologists who you see delivering your forecasts every day on the news, but not very many actually go out into the field and chase storms to document them. And talk about them when they're out storm chasing. That's a very unique thing to do, that, I think, not a lot of meteorologists are willing to actually take those kinds of risks. So, it makes me kind of a little bit more of a unique asset. I think in that type of position, just being willing to go out into the storm and also not many actually do that. At least not in the older days. That's changing now. There are a lot more women that are storm chasing, and it's really amazing to see more and more women in the field who are incredibly talented. But yeah, so that's been my journey and, you know, again, like I said, graduated with my degree last year, and initially, my plan was to go on and do field research, things like that. However, I had some unfortunate, unexpected health situations develop that kind of put that at least on hold for the time being. And so, it was around April may June that I was starting to look for other options in terms of jobs. And that's when I discovered NFTs and started to find my way with NFT photography. And at the time, it was only me and one other storm chaser that was out there putting out storm images. So, it's been quite a journey evolving through there, and never, in a million years, imagining that I could reach a global audience with my storm images. Really just incredible. It's that ability to show people this side of storms that I think most may never ever see with their own two eyes. Because, like you said, it is so rare and unique, you have to live in a certain geographic area to see these storms. So, there are a lot of people that honestly, looking at these storms, like you said, having a hard time even believing that they're real. Sometimes even when I'm chasing storms, and I'm looking at a scene like that, I ask myself, “Is this really real? Am I really seeing this?” It is. It blows my mind what the atmosphere can do and how massive these storms can be, and so powerful and beautiful, especially with all the different lighting environments that you can see around storms. It's truly one of the most magical things in the whole world. So, I'm so glad that I found this passion. I found storm chasing. It's everything to me.

Pierre Lambert: That's awesome. I pinned a few things in my head that I want to get back to. We’re going to dig into the NFT ward a lot deeper after. Before that, how much do we need to know about meteorology to actually be able to chase those storms? Like, how does it come together?

Jessica Moore: Forecasting itself is an art form. It truly is. I think a lot of people don't see it that way. It is a very scientific process, but it is also an art form. There's finesse involved. So, it's a lot of pattern recognition and looking at weather models and being able to interpret them to kind of understand where you need to be. Where the highest chances for storms are going to be. There are definitely big guiding tools out there such as the storm prediction center putting out these daily forecasts of severe thunderstorms, outlooks. Basically, where they highlight these general target areas where they think the highest chances of storms are going to be. But then, it's up to you to do your own forecasting and look at the data, satellite, and all the different parameters of the atmosphere that day and look at the environment. And just do your own forecasting and decide. “Okay, well, do I agree with this forecast, and where do I want to fine-tune my location to start out that day and wait for storms to develop?” Cause essentially, you're doing forecasting for me. I'm looking at the long-range where you're looking at, like the overall patterns of the jet stream and things like that—looking for certain clues that could indicate that there's potential for severe weather in a week or two, things like that. Then as you get closer and closer to those days, you can start to fine-tune your forecasting and try to get more of an idea of where you're going to specifically position yourself. In the hopes of having the highest chances of good storms. From there, you just have to put yourself in that position and hope that you made a good forecast and that mother nature decides to cooperate with you. It's really complex and challenging at times, depending on the forecast, and sometimes, it's really cut and dry and super easy and very obvious where you need to go. So, it's an art form in and of itself. It truly is.

Pierre Lambert: When I saw your art and things, I was like, “Oh my God, this is my childhood. Things that I love to watch.” You know? It's there. It's in real life. Real people outside of my TV do it. And I was like, “Oh my God, we need to do a YouTube episode, where I go and follow you while you're shooting your storm. And I’ll try to shoot a storm”, and then I was thinking, how likely is it that we can actually scale that? I understand that there will be a pure, maybe summer or spring where it will be more likely, but it's something where I’m almost must have to be in an area for three weeks and be like, “Okay, maybe today it's going to happen. It's not like Milky Way shots, where you can predict ten years in advance. Like This will be the right spot with the right angle. And how it's going to hit. 

Jessica Moore: Exactly. There are a lot of days, especially in late May and early June. I live in Colorado. There are a lot of days when I will just pick up all my gear and run out the door because I see that storms are happening literally like an hour from me. I just run out and go chase. But then there are other times that I have to plan days in advance, and I have to make the journey to, like Oklahoma or up to the Dakotas. Depending on what time of year it is. And sometimes, I'll go as far as the upper Midwest to Illinois, and Minnesota, and places like that. But not as often because it's more of a gamble, and it's expensive because really when you're thinking about it, storm chasing you're spending all that money on gas, hotels, food lodging. It can be expensive. So yeah, like it is really hard to schedule. There is that certain time of year when you just know. I'm basically blocking out this whole chunk of time between— I start chasing, typically in March. But I'm really going full-on with it starting April all the way through May, June, even July, and August. Because, July and August can take you further up north. As I said, the Dakotas and the upper Midwest where you're located, that's typically more that time of year when we see more of the severe weather threat shifting further north where you guys are. It can take you anywhere, really.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Here. This year, we didn't have that many thunderstorms, but I remember last year was just insane. Like, I think in July, August, we had them on a consistent basis, all the time. I had a few friends who got epic shots with the big clouds, and I don't have the names, but I think it’s cumulonimbus. I think big cloud. And then the thunderstorm. And at the same time, there's a rainbow because we're by the lake. I don't know how everything happens at the same time, but it was crazy. It is that you can literally be in the city, and not realize what's above your head or like what's happening. Like how beautiful it is And you go a few miles out, and you're like, “Wow, what is that experience happening right there? How do people feel?” And you feel nothing when you are under it in a way. Do you get any lessons, that say, out of that storm chasing that you can apply through life or that you can, that can help you look at life a different way? I'm curious because it seems so extraordinary in a way. 

Jessica Moore: That is such a good question, truly. That is because there are a lot of parallels between storm chasing and life. Storm chasing has taught me resilience. It's taught me endurance. It's taught me to believe in myself and trust my gut a lot more. There really is a lot of grinding it out when it comes to chasing. It's so many hours on the road. Sometimes it's 12 to 15 hours per day that you're driving, and it's exhausting. It'll literally drain you mentally and emotionally and physically, chasing storms, days on end. And you'll have these moments where you want to give up. And especially if you fail to forecast correctly on a chase, and you miss some really incredible storms or tornadoes somewhere else. You have to learn. That's happened a lot to me. You have to learn how to take something away from that. That helps you become a better forecaster next time. There are a lot of lessons to be taken away, and I really think resilience and belief in yourself are really the biggest things. And resilience is a skill that I've constantly had to develop throughout my whole life and a lot of the struggles that I've been through. It was never giving up, no matter how hard it gets. No matter how many times you fail, there is a lesson to be learned about you. That makes you a stronger person on the other side of this failure if you want to call it a failure. You need to fail in order to succeed. So as many times as I've failed chasing, I have come back stronger and become a better forecaster, a better chaser. And it's funny. It's like every time I feel like I'm at the end of my rope with chasing, and I'm like, man, I want to give up this. The season is so challenging… 

Pierre Lambert: I was about to ask you how many times have you come to the point where you're… 

Jessica Moore: So many, gosh! There have been seasons when like, the entire season was basically a bust. That's what we basically call it and chasing when storms don't evolve. The way that you're expecting if they even evolved at all in 2018 was one of those years. For me, 2020 was also a difficult year. It seems like the odd number of years with chasing, I seem to be the most successful have the best chase careers or chase seasons. But no, it's like, I have gotten to that place, many times, like questioning myself and having these introspective moments of like, “Why am I even still doing this?” This is so much money that I'm just throwing down the drain. It's exhausting. I'm like it does make certain things hard. Because I don't work traditional jobs because I need to be able to take weeks off at a time to go chase, makes a lot of things in life, more challenging. But I just feel that as long as you are doing something that sets your soul on fire, and you're passionate about it, you're crazy about this thing that fuels you, this passion, you're going to have those moments. You've got to push through them. And that even happens as an artist too, a lot of times where you're doubting yourself as an artist, and wondering if your art is good enough. Wondering if your voice is even being heard as an artist. You have those moments of just wanting to throw in the towel. But it's when you push through those moments and get to the other side, that's when I think your greatest growth as a person and as an artist occurs because you've pushed through that. And you've challenged those voices that say, “You know, maybe I'm not good enough, or I can't do this anymore.” You're proving why you can, and you need to keep creating your art. You need to keep chasing these storms because this is the thing that makes you feel most alive. To give up on chasing would be to like to cut out a part of myself that it's literally ingrained in who I am. So without chasing, I'm not a whole person. So, that's how I always pushed myself through it because I know, no matter how rough that season is, I'm going to come out the next season, capture something like that. I'm going to forget all about how horrible the year before. That year was. Because literally, this was 2019 that I captured…2019. It was incredible. I saw beautiful tornadoes, incredible storm structures, all of this. Right on the back end of 2018 when I felt like I saw virtually nothing. I saw one tornado the whole year, and the rest of the year pretty much sucked. And I was like, why am I even still chasing storms? What am I doing with my life? And then 2019 happened. And every single chase was like, for me, it was honestly incredible. So, I think there are a lot of life parallels for sure in chasing. So, you just have to keep pushing.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, Anything that takes time, dedication really tests you a lot. It’s not like street photography, where you can go out, and you're more exposed to things. It doesn't mean you're going to get the million-dollar shot, but you're more exposed to it. Here you are so much like downtime of like yourself. Like, am I doing this? I'm driving for 12 hours. 

Jessica Moore: I drove 12 hours to look at blue skies. What am I doing with my life? It just happened… 

Pierre Lambert: To put it to Twitter…[laughs] 

Jessica Moore: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

Pierre Lambert: Amazing. Okay. One last question around that because I’m curious. What's your philosophy? What happens to the storm itself in terms of… First of all, let's go weird. Do you call the storm also by name? Like, do you personify a little bit the storm when you chase it? 

Jessica Moore: So, you know, how I was calling that one Imperial? 

Pierre Lambert: Yes. 

Jessica Moore: So with the really iconic storms or like storms that produce tornadoes that impacted towns, we often refer to those storms by the name of the town that was most directly impacted. And it's strange that we kind of do that, but it helps us put this visual together of, “Okay, so this storm, we're calling this tornado, the El Reno tornado.” Because it was iconic, and it impacted, you know, an area like most of the area near El Reno. And that's a really classic tornado event. And then a lot of different events like Joplin, the Joplin tornado, which was a very deadly tornado. There are multiple tornadoes that have hit more in Oklahoma. So, you have to actually specify which tornado because there were so, many prolific tornadoes that have impacted that area. So yeah. I mean, we do kind of typically name them based on the towns that they occurred nearby.

Pierre Lambert: Okay. Personally, when you chase it, do you call it eight or she, or he? 

Jessica Moore: No, I think it's more like talking about mother nature. Maybe sometimes I say she, in reference to mother nature. But yeah. No, I think that's pretty much it. We kind of named the storms after they impact a certain area. 

Pierre Lambert: Got it. That makes sense. So, I'm fascinated because, those storms—for anyone who doesn't know that—you're looking at blue skies, and a few hours or minutes later, it's done. The whole thing is transformed. Right? It's not a matter of like, it takes a week, or it takes days. It can be within the same day, or am I accurate on that one? 

Jessica Moore: That's exactly right. It's one of my most favorite things is just sitting in an empty field, looking at the blue skies and knowing that you can feel it in the atmosphere. You can feel the instability and the energy. That's just churning in the atmosphere, waiting for that magical ingredient to ignite. Storm development right in front of you. And it's when it happens like that. It's truly magical.

Pierre Lambert: So you can feel it, right? Yeah. Okay. For anyone who hasn't experienced that? Correct me on that one because that's something I heard back in when I'm in French Alps and stuff. And when this guy starts turning yellow-orange, but like a soft glow. And you don't know where it's come from. Like we have a time reference. I think it's like the storm is within the now, or like send the storms in the mountains, or like 30 minutes. I couldn't remember. But I remembered the first time I actually noticed it before it happened. And it was like, “This is fascinating, you know?” And then the guide was like because we were like doing a mountain biking trip across the Alps, and we had to cross a peak. And it was, I think about around nine, 10,000 feet high, between nine and 12. So, we're biking, and he's like, “Well, the moment the wind comes, the rain will be there within five minutes.” What are you talking about? Five minutes? Like hailing and like raining on us, and then thunderstorms, and I was like, “Wow.” Someone shows you our experience, shows you like how we don't notice. If you're not an expert or if no one ever showed you, you don't notice it. But it's just around us. It's beautiful. Almost makes me wonder what happens with those storms? You know, It's almost like our emotions when they build up. They build up, they explode, and then gone. We're fine. 

Jessica Moore: That's a perfect analogy. Exactly. 

Pierre Lambert: All right. Let's shift gears and get into a bit of the art and the business side of things. At first, you mentioned that you had some health issues, and you were going to go into the research. Getting back a little to that, if that's okay with you, I'm just curious about how did you navigate that challenging time, and then we can get to how the NFT played a role in that. Because I felt like any time, If I don't know, personally, I would try to fight against things. That I'll tell him you know, or my body, you know, so…

Jessica Moore: Yes, absolutely. Yes. So, it's been a journey. It kind of started in 2019; August is really crazy. I remember the exact day, August 27th, 2019, where my whole entire life changed. And I started to have what I could only describe at the time as felt like a seizure. It was truly the most terrifying thing that I've ever experienced. It was just full-body, muscle spasms, and convulsions, and just about to faint and lose consciousness. And my heart was beating through my chest, and it was so crazy. I didn't know what was going on. I started having these episodes from that day. I started having them all the time. I didn't know what was going on. The doctors couldn't figure it out. Some doctors kept trying to tell me it was anxiety, but I've had panic attacks before. This is something totally different because it's a full-body loss of control of your bodily functions. And literally, like it was something neurological going on that no one could figure out. I bet I probably went to 12 to 15 different specialists trying to figure out what was going on. And every single specialist would be like, “Okay, well, I can find a few things that are a little off, but nothing's really pointing to some direct cause.” So, basically, everyone was able to tell that something was off but couldn't figure out why. It took me going to four different neurologists before the fourth one finally ran some really specific tests and found out that, finally, found two very rare antibodies that, for some reason, my body produces. This basically kind of led to the discovery that I have autoimmune autonomic neuropathy. Which basically means the failure of your autonomic nervous system, which controls your automatic functions, like breathing, heart rate, digestion, your body's ability to regulate its temperature. Your ability to regulate your blood pressure, you know? Just that kind of function, that kind of everything. Kind of everything, you know, like things that you need to survive and live. And then, I also have Sjogren's, which is a different autoimmune disease. So, I got this like a double whammy of like a hell of a diagnosis. I finally got this diagnosis in April of this year (2021). And it felt like to back up just a little bit. It was last year in 2020. That's when I was going through all my testing during the pandemic when it was very scary to go to hospitals and clinics. You know, because I felt like every day I'm putting myself at risk going to all these tests and all this stuff. But anyway, like that was my last year of college. And I was going to college online, Mississippi State. But I was determined that when I graduated at the end of November of 2020, I was going to drive to Mississippi and go to my graduation in person. And I ended up having to go by myself because I didn't want anyone in my family to risk traveling, but to me, it was worth risking because I've never graduated from anything before. So, it was really important to me to have this moment of graduating. And in my head, I was starting to accept that maybe my future is going to look a little bit different from what I thought. But I was still somewhat lying to myself and saying, “Oh no, it'll be fine. Once you graduate, you can just go, apply to grad school”. I was really planning on immediately applying to grad school  at either a CSU Fort Collins or CU Boulder here in Colorado. Both have really great atmospheric science programs. And I was super stoked about it. There's still a part of me that wants to do that at some point. But I do miss school and all this stuff. But like once I graduated. I had these moments of reflection, of wondering, what is the future really going to hold for me? I, felt like I couldn't really apply to regular jobs because of how quickly my health can just deteriorate rapidly, in a given day, if I'm having a bad flare-up of my issues. It's really, really challenging. And it's already hard enough being a single mom and making sure she is taken care of and provided for. It was basically, at this point, I really need to get creative with the type of income that I'm creating here. I didn't really know what I was looking for. I just basically got through the chase season around the June timeframe. I was starting to really feel the pressure of like, “I need to find something, I need to do something.” And it was literally at that time that I discovered NFTs, and I was starting to research really heavily into NFTs. And, really starting to kind of dive into the community and figure out what the community was all about. And I think I listed my Genesis piece on foundation at the very end of June or something like that. And it was hard in the beginning. I was just trying to find my way. That was also about the timeframe that I started going through some really serious medical treatments. So, that was another reason why I was like feeling this pressure. I know that I'm about to start three months of these really intense steroid infusions, which take a week to go through. And then a week to recover from because how intense these steroid infusions are, and they wipe out your immune system. Basically, the whole idea was these infusions were going to wipe out my immune system. So, hopefully, we could hard reset my immune system to kind of reboot itself. So, it would stop, maybe, hopefully, stop producing these antibodies. And you know, these harmful antibodies that are destroying my nervous system. So, during that time, I knew I wasn't going to be able to work. I didn't want to put myself out into the world while I have no immune system and COVID-19 is still a thing. So, I was freaking out like, “What am I going to do”? I literally have no source of income and NFTs, when I started to finally make sales in August, it changed my entire life. It was right on time. I was, literally, at the end of my rope. I was out of money. I was about to apply for disability because I was at this point. It's either I find a job now that works with my health condition. Or I have to apply for disability. I probably would have gotten it with my condition easily, but NFTs saved my life. Truly saved my life and the fact that people decided to invest in me and my art after hearing my story in a Twitter space. When I finally got the courage after several months to speak up and share my story, people just came out of the woodwork and wanted to support me and were blown away by my art. And it blows my mind still to this day that I can reach a global audience with my art and inspire people and people like my art, and they want to invest in me as an artist. And it just completely blows my mind. This community, this whole NFT journey, has absolutely changed my life. Whether I'm making sales or not. This community has changed my life by always being there to support me through the deepest, darkest moments of this health struggle. And I do hope at some point that my health will be in a better place, but unfortunately, the treatments that I went through did not work. So, I don't know what the next step is for me. You know, I have about a 30% chance of recovery, and so far, that's not really looking so great considering my treatments that I just went through. In fact, my antibody numbers actually got worse somehow. So, it's still a very scary time for me. There's still a lot of uncertainty in my life. I feel like I'm living these two different lives of like, “Oh, I'm finally successful with my art. I feel like this is the year that I literally made it as an artist, as a photographer, in ways that I never imagined.” Making more money in three months with my art than I ever have in a single year, just with any job. And then, at the same time lingering below the surface, I'm still fighting this immense internal, physical battle that I'm losing. Like I'm losing this battle right now. At least in terms of what the numbers show on the charts. But the thing is this journey, this NFT movement, and the way it's shaped my life have given me this hope for my future. I didn't have before it's shined a light and said, “You know what? You might have these limitations now, physically, but that doesn't mean you can't still create your art. That doesn't mean you can't still put your art into the world.” I think that the most powerful aspect of NFTs for me personally is that no matter what happens to me, through the creation of my art and putting it into the NFT world, and putting it on the blockchain I am preserving that art. My art is preserved on the blockchain forever. So, no matter what happens to me, my art will always be there. It will live on no matter what. And I think to me that's, the legacy that I really want to have is my art, and you know, the impact that it has on other people. Inspiring others to follow in my footsteps, hopefully. You know, that's really the most that I could ask for out of this whole journey. So, it’s been really life-altering. Like it's been so life-altering and amazing.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Thank you so much for being open and sharing them that it must not be easy in a way. I can't even barely imagine what you're going through because whatever I had ever in my life sounds like it sounds like a kid's game now. And it makes me realize how that NFT community and, like that work, like you said, it can be life-transforming. Because from my point of view, and how I would see the space, I sometimes have problems understanding or reconnecting the dots between people, saying, “It changed my life.” And people over and facing that because I've seen it happen in different spaces, where you have people say, “This changed my life, blah, blah, blah.” But then when you have a real story, and you know, the people, and you're like, oh, I understand how it did it. It's not a question of, did it work or not? Yeah, absolutely. But it's more like, how did it help? What did it mean? And I think you're representing right now exactly, what it means to be an artist going forward in the 21st century, where you can represent yourself. You can put yourself out there. You can create a body of work that can be created forever in that blockchain that can live. Go beyond ourselves. Because I feel like as an artist, that's also why we put out our work there because we want to put out a message. We want to share stories. We want to share stuff. Not just because of our next week. We have to live our next ten years. It's also, “Hey, can I share that with my grand, grand grandkids that I will never meet?” Excited by that. And if it’s hard to understand how powerful it is, I'll give an example that might not be applicable. But Jessica, if you were to pass away in 10, 20 years, five days, one day tonight, it doesn't matter because you could pass also your wallet to your kids. And be like, “Hey, here's the royalty of what was created. And that might be resold, or that auction, or like put in galleries.”  That is insane because if I sell prints to someone, that's it, you know, like the printer's gone, and I don't know what happens to it, where it went. And if people resell it or if, even if it’s bought at 4,000 and sell it at 400, I still don't know what happens. You know if it’s on the side of the road, you know, like a garage sale. I'm like, no, I'm joking. I would probably buy it back. But it's something where your kids, your legacy, you can actually keep that. It's almost like they have now a book of everything you've created. It's like we wrote a book as artists, almost, and we can pass on that. It's so cool. Let's dive a little bit into that journey and the duality between how our bodies are operating and how they're living their life. And also the parallel with what we would define as success in terms of art and how it works. Just to give an idea, how long did it take you between the moment you're like, “Okay, going to put my work out there.” What was your mindset when you were like, “I'm going to create my first NFT,” and how long did it actually take to get something to work or like sell?

Jessica Moore: So my Genesis piece, I put on foundation after getting an invite from Ben Skaar, who remains a good friend here in the space. He gave me an invite, ‘cause you know, it's one of those platforms you need an invite to get into. He chose me because of the art that I shared with him. I guess he really loved my art, and he thought that I could go places. This had already been a while after I'd already been researching and kind of trying to figure out the ropes and all of that stuff. But I put my Genesis piece out there, and then, I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't expect it to sit there for so long and to not feel seen, but I put it out there, and then I was like, “Okay, I don't know how to reach people. And I'm struggling here a little bit.” But I just kept showing up in spaces every day and getting to know the community. And most of the time, honestly, for the first two months of being in Twitter spaces, I just listened. I would get in big Twitter spaces, small ones. I would listen and get a feel for everything and learn as much as I could from people. And that was honestly the most valuable thing to me, like, “Okay, well, my art's not selling, but it doesn't matter. ‘Cause I'm getting a lot of like great feedback from people”, and I started to continue to put more work out there and then all this stuff. And I put out my first collection on an open seat; nothing was selling still. I reached a low point where I was like, maybe I don't belong here. Maybe, there isn't a market for storm photography. Maybe people don't care about storms. Maybe it's not what people consider art because there's a lot of incredible, gorgeous landscape photography out there. A lot of night sky photography with, you know, the Milky Way. A lot of really pretty Aurora photography. There are so many different, incredible things like so many different kinds of photographers. There weren't really many storm photographers. And so, I kind of wondered, maybe I was not in the right place. Maybe I didn't have a place here. I was already pretty low anyway, mentally, because of what I was going through. I was going through my treatments literally at that moment. And I was ready to give up on NFTs. That was like, “My work sucks. Everything sucks. I'm terrible. And nobody likes me.” I was really just down on myself because I was already going through so much. And I was at the end of my rope, and someone tagged. I don't want to dox him, but I might as well. He already knows how much he's changed my life. Somebody, you know, tagged these and…

Pierre Lambert: Give him the credit. I think they'll appreciate it. 

Jessica Moore: I think so. I mean, He already knows like the impact he's had on my life. You know, he is, is one of the biggest collectors of photography in the entire space. And somebody tagged him in one of my posts where I was, you know—it's bad when you're willing to literally auction off a photo and still no one even bids on it. And I was bummed out. I was ready to give up. And he really loved my, piece. He really loved my art. He put in an offer for 0.75 ETH, and I didn't even wait for anyone to counter it. I just accepted it immediately because I was so excited that anyone would even bid on my piece at all. Especially, you know, especially someone like this. And then that night was the first time that I actually got up in his Twitter space, initially only with the intention of—this was in August, so this was, a good two and a half months after listing Genesis piece. 

Pierre Lambert: Well, I'm just going to pause, guys. Let that sink in. It was two and a half months later after you put your Genesis piece and collection. So just, just remit, but yourself. And it's a space that that was exploding. Like we're talking about like, That's period is like crazy from, I would say February 2021 until tonight. It's been insane. So, it's not, we're not, talking about five years, we're talking now. So, we want to remind people to be a little humble on this, on the timeframes. 

Jessica Moore: Patience is absolutely key. Patience and staying involved in the community. And, that night, I got up into that space to really intending to just thank these, but it kind of evolved into them wanting to hear my story. And so, I shared my story. Of my health journey and how it's impacted my art. I just lost it in this space. I don't know. It's like all of a sudden everything that I'd been dealing with, everything that I've been feeling, and then mix that with the gratitude that I was feeling towards these at that moment. I just emotionally broke down. I was just like sobbing and these space, and I got myself together, and I still came through. I wanted to —because it was really important for me to share that message. How important it really is that we're in this space right now, creating our art and putting it on the blockchain where it can be preserved forever. No matter what happens to us. And from there, I guess, my story impacted a lot of people, and my work just started being picked up left and right. My collection sold out, and then my next collection sold out, and it was just like, a tidal wave of things happening for me. It just felt like a tremendous blessing that, you know, people truly—not everyone knows my story. It's not like I was sharing this. I don't share it a lot, you know, my health journey. But because I don't want people to buy my art because they feel sorry for me. But from there, these people continue to give me a platform and promote my work and lift me up. You know, now that I have a bit of a platform, I'm able to then pay that forward and lift up other artists that are just brand new to the space, and I'm lifting them up as well. So, this is what the space is all about. It's this forward propagation that it's like the snowball. It keeps growing and growing as it rolls down the hill. And you're just bringing more and more people with you and lifting them up. And just this forward momentum that we're all carrying with our art as we're creating it. It's just so incredible to be a part of this movement.

Pierre Lambert: It's such a strange space. I haven't been very active lately. But I actually heard about you on the space the first time, and I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” It's probably the first Twitter space I ever joined ever. And I was like, “Oh, this is fun. It sounds like clubhouse, but it seems cooler because there's Twitter around it.

Jessica Moore: Yeah.

Pierre Lambert: And then I was like, “Oh, that's so interesting.” I was just checking out everyone who either would speak or was around the space. I'm just very curious. And when I saw your art, I was like, “Oh my God, this is childhood like dreams and stuff”. You know, photos, I'm like, “This is perfect.” Then I started digging into the story. I'm like, “Oh my God, and I don't mean it in a bad way, but you're a female. You're an artist. You’re in, I think, a very male dominant thing from an external point of view. Which I don't know anything about metrology, but every time I would watch shows when I was a kid, it was men. You know, like men, like with big trucks and doing their thing. And so, I was like, “Oh, this is perfect.” And at the back of my head, I'm always trying, you know, especially with the podcasts and stuff. I just share stories are that are a little different and not just different, but also that really resonates with me, and I'm like, “Oh hell yes, yes. Jessica.” Like what you're creating is amazing. Let's check it out a little more. So, I did more digging. I looked at the collections and stuff, and I would get really excited. I'd pin down a few other people. And then I think I joined two other spaces over the next. I don't know, it's been four months or three, maybe two, three months now. When you create art like that, and I feel like when you're very authentic, it comes through, you know? That you’re excited. You cannot take those photos and not be passionate about that kind of thing. It's not something that, “you can wing it on a Sunday at sunset.” It really shines through, and I'm so excited for you and for this journey. By the way, guys, the show notes have everything. We'll put the links to your foundation profile, to the open sea collections, to Twitter, everything. What is happening now? Where are you going? And how do you move forward from that point? Because I imagine there's always that I'm going to make assumptions, but there's always the storm, you know? It starts at the beginning. It's like big and beautiful. And then at one point, it hits. So, And then it leaves. So, how do you see the transition into from these are my first ones, and I'm going forward as maybe as established.

Jessica Moore: Really, I think I might put out one more collection of stormscapes because I have a lot of really beautiful storm images from over the years that just haven't really had a place that they could call home. And again, because I've been doing this for ten years, I have a large body of work. I would like to share. I do feel that even though, as my best really, pieces are going to continue to rise and cost. I'm lifting listing pieces for four or five, six ETH, and even up to ten ETH with my latest piece that I dropped on Cactux Adventure, Vince's new platform, Tux Start Art. I’ll put on an animated storm photo on there that I really view as my masterpiece because it's an animated Supercell. It's rotating. It looks like it's rotating, but it's a still image. So, I brand it through some software and added some animation to it. So, I listed that one for ten ETH because that's a type of art I've never created before. And it feels like the absolute apex of my storm photography journey up to this point. So, that one's my highest listed piece. I have pieces that are listed higher on secondary. I bet one of my supercell shots is listed at 20 each by the collector. So, I've got some pieces that are really starting to really go up in value. But I still do want to make sure that my art is accessible to collectors that still would like to have a piece of my art. So, I'm still going to probably put out one more collection of images—that'll probably be priced anywhere from 0.2, five to 0.5, or somewhere in that range— of storm images that are still good. They still represent me and my journey. They're just not going to be my very best pieces. So, that will probably be another stormscapes volumes. I've got two volumes of my stormscapes images, and then I'll probably put out a third one at some point. My plan overall is to put together a photo book that I'm actually publishing called stormscapes. It’s going to be just reflecting my journey over the last 10 years of storm photography. So, really excited about that one. I just started it in the last month or so. I have a long way to go, but yeah, so my journey really, or my plan, is just to continue to grow the value of my art and next chases. And hopefully, I can get some more amazing imagery that I can just continue to put my art out and just continue to create new art with NFTs. And just see how I want to evolve over time. If I want to start doing things, I could maybe consider doing some time-lapses. Maybe I'll start incorporating some other cool perks with my NFT purchases. Like, If you buy this NFT, I'll take you on a storm chasing tour or a storm photography tour. And I do have storm photography tours that I am actually releasing to the public here over, probably by the end of the year, I think. I'm still putting pages of my website together, but I've already been doing storm tours privately. But that's something I want to release to the public. And then I thought, well, if I release this, and I show, you know, this is the cost of my tour. However, if you buy this NFT, you get a free tour, kind of thing. So, that might be something I play around with and just see how that goes. I mean, no matter what happens, I'm going to be chasing storms. And I have a chase partner that I work with a lot as well, who helps me with my driving things like that at times. But for the most part like, my plan is just to continue chasing and photographing storms for as long as NFT is lucrative for me. I'm trying to make NFTs my full-time thing. And since August have been, so I'm hoping to keep that momentum going.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah, it's one of those momentum that you have to keep going. If you just drop it. I don't think it… you know, it's like a Picasso saying, “Okay, I'm done.”

Jessica Moore: Exactly. You got to keep on creating.

Pierre Lambert: Right? Like, “Cool. I sold a few pieces. So, I guess….” 

Jessica Moore: Exactly.

Pierre Lambert: If it’s in your DNA, you'll keep creating. 

Jessica Moore: Exactly. And that's it. I'll always be creating art, whether it sells or not. But I my hope is definitely that people will continue to be inspired by my art and want to invest in my journey. And to everyone who already has up to this point, even if it's just with sharing and re-tweeting my work, I'm just so eternally thankful and grateful for every single person. Even people like you that decided to give me opportunity to share my story on this podcast. It just means so much to me that you would even want to hear my story and give me the chance to talk about my art. So, I truly appreciate it.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah. I don't know. I think your story is fascinating. Everyone's story is fascinating. That depends on how that one person sees it, too. You know, I think you understand depth and the value of your own—I'm going to go really wide— but like existence here, you know? And like what it means to even witness that, you know, being supercharged by these storms.

Jessica Moore: The storms are my fuel. 

Pierre Lambert: Exactly, who knows. That wouldn't be too crazy with all the experience. If you've been in a thunderstorm, you can experience like your skin change or… 

Jessica Moore: It recharges me, truly. Like, If I go too long without storms, I feel depleted. And as soon as I'm around the energy of the storm, again, I feel like I'm revived. It's truly. Yeah, that's not hard to imagine.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah. It's like me and the ocean, you know, I need to get in the water time to time. Otherwise, it's just I don't feel complete. That's amazing, storm tours. Okay. That one whenever it's live, we're going to link it below. When I do come into your area, we'll try to make a YouTube video together, and we'll link more to that. So, we can share with people the experience. That would be really fun. And honestly, the NFT space, can you tell me, you mentioned a few things? Which I think is going more and more towards it, where you can use the NFT to, for example, book a tour, and you get access, and you have the NFT at the same time. Maybe you can give a few more perks. How do you see NFTs work in five years in that space? I know you don't have a crystal ball, but if you were to take a wild stab at it, what do you see coming up? 

Jessica Moore: I think that's exactly it. I think we're going to start to see NFTs have so much more utility even than we can envision right now. It's hard to imagine. What could it really lead to, you know? There are so many different things, like you said. Okay, you know, like a photographer is starting to get creative with what they're including with those NFTs and what those NFTs, what kind of perks are coming with that. And, you know, like I said, with the storm chasing tour, that could just be one aspect. Let's say that collector doesn't want to go on a storm photography tour. I know for a fact that some people just don't want anything to do with being near storms. They're scared. It's very dangerous, right? There's a… 

Pierre Lambert: I don't get that part first. What, what do you mean? You have your meteorologist, and you didn't want to go there? What? 

Jessica Moore: Well, I think, I think there is a lot of inherent risks and danger with storm chasing. So, there is a liability factor for myself as an artist. If I do want to start incorporating storm tours, however, an alternative to that could be, like, I will go for a week storm chasing and create a custom NFT only for you. And it'll be airdrop to you. And it'll like something very specific for you. Like a commission. Exactly. Commission work. It could be another gateway for artists for commissions. That's exactly. I think one route where I could see that going it could be tickets to a photo exhibition that's your art. That you're exhibiting in a certain gallery. It could be Like I always like to include prints for my collectors if they want them. So, I'm always going to continue to offer that. Because I think having that tangible piece, a beautiful piece of art that you can put on your wall, I think is truly adds value to the art that you're delivering to people. And not everyone needs that or wants the physical piece, but I think having that tangible value really helps it be that much more meaningful for collectors when they can hang a piece of your art on their walls. That's what it is. And then knowing that no matter what happens like, they have that NFT, they have the original, so they own that piece too. So, it's just as you increase your value as an artist. The piece that they're holding is increasing in value as well. So, most of my collectors have held on to my work and have not tried to flip it. That's fine if they do, obviously. Either way, whether they want to flip it for higher value and help me with secondary sales, that's great. Or if they truly do love my art and want to hold on to it forever, that means just as much to me. So at the end of the day, my goal is just I'm just trying to create more art that inspires people. And if I can add utility to that, I'm going to look for ways to do that. But at the end of the day, I hope people will just continue supporting art for the sake of art. You know, I still have that purist mindset sometimes with art. Like, I do think that it should be appreciated for face value of what it truly is, but I also see no harm in continuing to add utility and get creative with contracts and things like that. So, I don't even know what the future holds. I think it's going to be really exciting to see how it evolves and how people get creative with adding utility to their, to their art. 

Pierre Lambert: Yeah, think that was our thing. Staying flexible and understanding things will change. I don't think it stays. It already has changed from March to now, you know? Like probably 60,000 times, it will continue to do so. So, it's almost a technical question, but the value, and it's something I explained through one of my videos. I was explaining to people the value is that now you can. Send stuff to your collectors very easily. You can connect with them in a way. You know who they are in real-time. Even if you are, it gets resolved, which is something like we mentioned earlier with prints, or books, or anything like that, you wouldn't really know. There is a way to connect through the blockchain? Can we send them a message, and I still want to know, like figure this out. Or is it only if they become public on Twitter, or they are a wallet address is made to the link to some profile? 

Jessica Moore: Yeah, so that can be hard because I still have quite a few anonymous collectors that I have. No, I have no idea who they are, or I just know that they collected my art. I can't find any sort of link to their profile or anything like that. I just happen to know who they are, or they've reached out to let me know that they've collected a piece for me. But there are several anonymous collectors that I have. So, I always try to make a personal connection with my collectors if I'm able to, but it's not always possible. And also, a lot of collectors are very private about their identities. So, not everyone wants you to send to them a print because they don't want to give out their address or their name or anything like that. So, that can be hard. But I just try to. Most people, some collectors, will have like a P.O. box so that they don't have to give away or like a business address. You know, they're trying to protect their identity, which completely makes sense. So, I do try my very best to connect and build relationships with my collectors and several of my collectors. Like these, I now consider good friends, and I just treasure those relationships so much, so valuable to me. Another collector, Moby, who's become a very, very close friend. I'm actually working with him on a project called motor heads, where he's a modifying artists and turning them into emojis. And then we get a percentage of those secondary sales. So, that's really cool. I think collaboration within the community is just really amazing. And building relationships with people is really what keeps me coming back to this space is building those relationships.

Pierre Lambert: That's fascinating. Yeah. It felt like it's a big part, and I'll be honest at the beginning especially looking from outside, I was like, okay, everyone's talking about the community and stuff. It was almost triggering some of my buttons where I was like, something's not right. You can't just rely on the community in a way, you know, it's not just, let's say, everything does not appear out of thin air to buy that art. But over time, also what I understood, and that's what I mentioned, that it's fascinating because who collects the art is very different from the traditional art collectors. I feel like I've seen friends who collected stuff that I would never think they are even interested in art, which means that money could be from taking entrepreneurs who are aged, you know, that are maybe between 25, 35 or 40. And they actually got into the crypto space already. They have those assets, they want to reinvest, they want to buy stuff, but they would never, ever consider taking it out and buying a Van Gogh, or, like famous artists in the traditional sense of things. And so, that's how I started to see that that whole ecosystem was working. And then, like you mentioned, it's a virtuous cycle. If your investment in artists and the arts is growing, then they can also, if they're interested, reinvest in other artists, which is always good. 

Jessica Moore: You hit something pretty spot on, really important point that I think is hard for artists at times. Traditionally, NFTs are viewed through the scope of investing in something. I mean, it, people don't want to say that, but it's true. It's like a lot of these projects, especially like generative projects, the PFP projects, and things like that. Typically, that's been that, cause that was around first, before art. So, a lot of collectors have had that mentality of what am I buying now that I can flip for a profit later? Or what am I buying that I can hold for a long time? And eventually, it's going to be worth a ton of money. Whereas art being relatively new to the scene, this one of one art pieces, those are seen as a higher-risk investment. Because there's absolutely no way of knowing if that art is going to be worth something later on. You're actually causing collectors to shift how they're thinking a little bit and seeing well. Actually I just want to collect this piece because I like the art. I don't care if it's ever going to be something that I've flipped for money. And certain collectors have that mentality with the art that they collected. Like they have a very split in their mind between, “Okay, these are my PFPs, and my journey of projects that I may or may not flip. And then this….” 

Pierre Lambert: My casino money. 

Jessica Moore: Yeah, this is my casino money.

Pierre Lambert: I say it like that because, people, no offense to anyone in the community, but if you're telling me that you're professional investors in NFT,  the space is not that long enough that you can call yourself a professional. You know, it's more like, okay, I'm investing in 10 startups. Hopefully one makes it out, and so I call it the casino because I think anyone investing in anything should be okay with losing it all. 

Jessica Moore: Well, exactly. 

Pierre Lambert: You go to Vegas, and I put $500. I probably know it will never come back. 

Jessica Moore: Exactly. That's a very important philosophy that people need to keep in mind that when they're mitigating their risk, their financial risk, you should only be putting money into crypto and NFTs and whatever that you can afford to lose. You have to be okay with investing in a project and watching it go to zero because I've done it.  I've had this happen, and I'm newer to this space. So, I know this can be the way that it goes sometimes. And you just have to be willing to part with that money. Don't invest with what you can't afford to lose. That's supercritical. But I think these collectors that are also, you know, buying these one art pieces. A good majority or good percentage of them are truly investing in the art because they love the art, or they want to support the artist. There are some that I think are trying to flip the art so that they can help artists get their secondary market going. There are different philosophies to it. And I think it's with your collections that are lower priced to your pricing in that way because you're hoping for a secondary market to keep that income stream coming from supplementary, you know, the supplementary income stream coming in. Whereas you're pricing those in a way that once they go, you're okay with the price that you let them go at and knowing that they may never sell again. That's why my one of my standalone, one of ones, are priced higher for that reason because this is a piece that means the world to me. I'm not willing to let it go at a collection price. It's going to be priced 3, 4, 5 ETH because or more, that's the value that it has to me. It's too important for me to let it go at a lower price. That’s where you're having that more traditional art approach where you're pricing it to sell it. You're not pricing it, hoping that your collector's going to flip it. It's just different approaches.

Pierre Lambert: I love that. You actually touched on that because it's a debate a lot of people have. And those one-on-one pieces, even personally, I got a few projects and all of them. I think I sold one thing or two that were airdropped. Or that I didn't really like the rest. I just kept it. I'm like, “No, I want that in my virtual, whatever metaverse universe that I will have in the future. I just like it. I had a bit available to actually buy it.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. I want to keep this.” Meanwhile, I have friends who like flipped 60 times, even some of the things I hold, and I'm like, “Okay, good for you. I still don't care. It's 4, 20 ETH now. Good. I'm not selling, And then two weeks later, it's worth eight. Like I had a Gary Vee thing, for example, and I'm like, “Cool. I got at that 0.5 in 2021. I don't really care right now.” It's not about flipping it. And you're always taking a guess, trade, or time to market. So, I think it's the same thing with them, with all photography. If you buy a print for your home, you're not thinking of, “I'm going to flip it.” And that's where traditional, old school photographers find old photographers. Like if you take David Yarrow, for example. You can listen to him. He's been on the podcast and I heard him speak once, which was really interesting. I think it was Tim Ferris. And I think his art pieces start at $10,000; you can't even see the price online. You have to submit an inquiry form, what kind of support you're looking for. And it's a very fine, odd process where you actually weed out. Not in a bad way, but you filter which your collectors will be from the get-go. You know, the hundred dollars print from Ikea is not the same as the $10,000 print person who will buy it. Not the same profile, not the same needs. And I think, Jessica, you're doing a great thing by pressing it like that for your one-on-one because then you stay in that realm. Where like, “Hey, this is not just anything.” This is not just a cool photo. This is a very specific piece. This is art, and this is how you should see it. As an art investment for your personal collection and not, “Let's flip it tomorrow.” I think it's a great balance or find balance for artists. Because it makes sure that you still have some pieces out there that are accessible for people that do want to be a part of your journey. I think that's amazing. But then, at the same time saying very clearly why these pieces are so important and valuable and yeah.

Jessica Moore: I think it's great. And I have some regrets about how I priced some of my best pieces earlier in the space. And so, I've taken those learning lessons and, you know, kind of evolve. Like we're all learning in this space because it's also new. Right. All of this is going to be a learning experience. So, where I'm at in my journey now. And I hope I continue to grow and see how it goes.

Pierre Lambert: Yeah, I remember seeing one of your tweet about those already pieces and that you pull them back and reprise them. At the moment, we do the best we can with the information we have. And then you, just adapt in the future. Well, Jessica, I hope this has been helpful, not just for me but also for anyone listening. And I want to ask you maybe two parting questions, the first one. What gear do you shoot with? 

Jessica Moore: Gosh! I shoot with Nikon. I'm a Nikon girl. Nikon D810, Nikon, D780. And then a couple of different lenses telephoto wide-angle. My wide-angle, my broken one 14-millimeter F 2.8, has been my main lens. But I will be upgrading, and I'm so excited. Upgrade to the super-wide Sigma art lens, which is F 1.8 14-millimeter. I'm just an absolute beast of a lens. So, I'm super excited for that.

Pierre Lambert: That's awesome love that you're shooting Nikon. I felt like I haven’t heard of Nikon people lately. 

Jessica Moore: Yeah, I know it's all Sony, 

Pierre Lambert: I know, I'm like, Sony vs. Canon. I'm like Nikon was great. I shot Nikon for years as a pro. So, I have no problem with Nikon. 

Jessica Moore: It's a great camera.

Pierre Lambert: I still recommend it for people. If they can find it for cheap on secondhand, I'm like, “Go.” Oh last one would be, would you recommend to, let's say, someone trying to get started two months in the NFT warrant? What would you let them think about, maybe?

Jessica Moore: I would say. Just get into the community research, listen research, everything you can find from good resources on Google. There's definitely some really amazing photographer NFT resources as well. Some good guidebooks out there that I can surely provide those references if needed. And then also just show up in Twitter spaces and just listen and build community with the people around you. Because the more you're involved if you come in with a community. Focus from the beginning and just genuinely wanting to be involved. You'll find that success will just come naturally just from being forever present and putting positive vibes into the space. And just being a champion for other people and promoting others. Showing that you're not just here for the money because to be honest, it's so up and down in this space. That you know that sales are never guaranteed. Just because I've had success in the past doesn't mean I'm going to continue too. It's just, the space is constantly evolving and, and you all you can do is just put your art out into the world with intention, dedication, and passion. And then just keep being involved in the community. And keep learning and growing and learning what this space is all about and seeing how you can contribute to it. Because that's really, in my opinion, how you get the most from being involved in NFTs. If you're just here looking for a quick cash grab, you're probably going to be disappointed.' Because it's just not that easy, there are people that get lucky here and there, but generally speaking, it is not that easy to just come in and magically just make a bunch of big sales. It doesn't work that way.  It generally does not work that way. So people want to see you involved. It does take some time investment. If you have multiple other jobs, and you're doing all these other things, it's going to be hard for you to invest the kind of time into this space that, I think, is really needed to really, flourish and thrive. That doesn't mean you can't find success at all. It just means it's going to be a lot harder because it's going to be harder for you to be seen, basically. 

Pierre Lambert: Absolutely. I think that's so important for anyone. I think it's easy to see the golden goose without seeing all the dead geese around, you know? Yeah, that's an analogy for you. There we go. It's slightly creepy, but…

Jessica Moore: That's a little creepy, but I'm here for it. 

Pierre Lambert: That's fine. That's so funny. Yeah. I don't know. You can ask my wife. She'll be like, you just have the words and knowledge way too extreme, Pierre. 

Jessica Moore: Dial it back. 

Pierre Lambert: Yeah. Okay. They're not golden. They're just normal geese. 

Jessica Moore: Geese, not dead.

Pierre Lambert: That's awesome. Jessica, thank you so much. Where can people find you online? Where do you want to send them to? 

Jessica Moore: Sure, Twitter. My handle is @DopplerJess, so like doppler radar. D-o-p-p-l-e-r. Jess, J-e-s-s. That's my Twitter. My website is www.jessicamphotographer.com  and then foundation, and opeansea. My username on both of those platforms is Doppler Jess. And in fact, I think it's also dopplerjess on Tux Art. That's a new platform that just came out you know, was developed. But yeah, dopplerjess pretty much everywhere except for my main website.

Pierre Lambert: Cool. Awesome. Jessica! Thank you so much for taking the time. That's the one thing we cannot trade in this world, so thank you. I really appreciate it. And thank you, everyone for tuning in.

Jessica Moore: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. 

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