Echoes from the Wild: When the Wild Looks Back

Apr 21

It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even curiosity.
It was a look that said: I see you. I know what you are.

Male lion walking directly toward the camera in the Masai Mara, Kenya, with a second lion following in the distance. — *“The approach—his world, not mine.”*

The lion continued to walk—eyes locked through the lens, but aimed straight at me.
I held still.
He licked his upper lip as he walked, slow and unbothered—his pink tongue catching the light.
It wasn’t a threat. It was just... him. Alive. Present.

I had seen lions before—roaming, resting, roaring into the dusk.
But this was different.
This one didn’t just meet my gaze. He saw past the camera. Past the equipment.
He saw me.

I don’t know if you’ll ever find yourself in a moment like that—in a place where everything around you is alive and untamed, and suddenly, you are no longer the observer.
You are the observed.

It changes things.
It changes you.

I didn’t feel fear. I felt seen.
Not as a photographer. Not as a human with tools and good intentions.
But as something smaller—something that didn’t belong unless he allowed it.

He kept walking. Calm. Certain. And he didn’t break his gaze.

I stayed quiet and low, the way you do when instinct tells you not to challenge what’s older than you.
I pressed the shutter once, maybe twice. Not to take something—but to honor it.
To hold the moment, not the lion.

That’s the thing about wild places.
We arrive thinking we’re going to capture them.
But every once in a while, if we’re lucky—they capture us.

I’ve carried that look with me. Not just in the image, but in the way I approach everything after.

There’s a difference between taking a photograph and being seen by what you’re photographing.
You feel it in your chest.
You feel it in the silence afterward.

You’ll know it when it happens.
And when it does, don’t rush. Don’t worry if the settings are perfect.

Just stay with it.

Some moments aren’t meant to be chased or captured.
They’re meant to remind you where you are—and who you are—
and how small and lucky you might be to stand in their presence.