Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst captured the viral picture of Donald Trump circulating online, in which he appeared to be flinching at the noise of B-1 bombers as they flew overhead during a military flyover show at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Wednesday.Ernst, who calls himself a photojournalist, joined Reuters in 2015. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is now based in Washington, D.C.The military flyover show was held in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Madam Peng Liyuan, as they arrived for a 3-day visit to the United States. U.S. First Lady Melania Trump was also in attendance.After shaking hands and exchanging gracious greetings, the two heads of state attended the event. Following the viral moment, Xi Jinping and Trump shared a few more words as well as laughed before departing for D.C.Besides Jonathan Ernst’s viral picture, video of the moment is also circulating online.Jonathan Ernst: Life and careerJonathan Ernst was inspired by his father, an avid photography hobbyist, who carried his Pentax SLR around for fun and frequent family portraits. In fact, according to Ernst’s bio on Widerimage.reuters.com, his dad had a darkroom under the stairs in the basement of his childhood home.“When I was about 8 years old, I remember we sent off for a free booklet from Kodak about how to make a pinhole camera, and that was my first camera – a little box made out of black matte board and tin foil that strapped onto an old 126 film cartridge,” he reminisced.Jonathan Ernst has a college degree in English and journalism. He also learned proper filming techniques and how to develop prints in the library, helping professors with slide films and taking basic photography courses on campus. A year after graduating and interning in theater photography, he landed his first job as a photojournalist.“I blanketed about 100 newspapers in 37 states with my resume and nine months later, one editor who had held onto it gave me a shot at an entry-level job at a newspaper. I had a lot to make up for, not having had any sort of intensive training in photography or a photojournalism internship,” Ernst recalled.He further mentioned working for three years, seven days a week, including four days at the newspaper and three at a camera shop to “make ends meet” at the start of his career.“I had to shoot my first assignment twice! It was embarrassing, but instructive. I was sent to shoot a restaurant owner for a profile of a new restaurant. My newspaper editor (rightly) hated what I brought back, and sent me straight back to do it over,” Ernst explained.Before joining Reuters, Jonathan Ernst worked as a lab technician and photographer at Asheville Citizen-Times in North Carolina and The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia. View this post on Instagram Instagram PostErnst’s work for Reuters often involves “many hours of protective coverage”, and he takes “deep pride” in preparing for his assignments.“One of the great things about working for Reuters is that my audience could be anyone in the world. I might edit certain stories with a European, Asian, or South American news consumer in mind, but in reality, I'm always trying to put my best work out there and see if it finds a home,” Jonathan noted.His first global assignment was a piece he wrote and photographed in Liberia in 2000. It is one of his most “deeply meaningful” experiences.“It pushed me to work harder, be more self-reliant and set my horizons higher than anything else I had done before. The editors where I was working at the time gave me an incredible gift when they gave my project a green light,” he adds.Jonathan Ernst enjoys working on projects where he gets to explore a “subject in depth”, especially if they are far from the staged official events in Washington, D.C.“But, totally conversely, on most days I would give my right arm to be in the middle of the day's biggest news or sports story,” he observes.As for the level of competition in the U.S. capital, Jonathan Ernst says it’s “incredibly high”, as those involved are the most skilled photographers in the country.“It makes the work a lot of fun, and it makes winning – if and when it might ever happen – a lot sweeter,” Ernst states.One of Jonathan Ernst’s proudest works is an image of Richard Fuld, the Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers Holdings, near the U.S. Capitol, where protesters held signs against him. Fuld was there to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. He wrote about the picture:“Primarily, I'm proud of this image because it's difficult to make a graphic, story-telling photograph at big legislative hearings, and it can be especially difficult to produce a somewhat singular image while working cheek-by-jowl with a large number of other photographers in a small space. And second, the picture is a fairly extreme crop of the original image - and I'm proud that I was able to see the 'picture within the picture' while editing on deadline.”Besides primarily covering politics, Jonathan Ernst occasionally covers sporting events.