More, Please.

I’ve been a very casual/occasionally more serious photographer since I was a teenager, but the thing that really changed everything was seeing 399 in the Tetons in 2023.

It was my first workshop. I really wanted to see a grizzly, and our chances of seeing any grizzly at all were about 5%. I actually was hoping for 399 all week. She really was the Queen of the Tetons – the most famous grizzly in the world. Photographer Tom Mangelsen documented her life for years, and together they made an enormous number of people care about the future of wild grizzlies. That mattered then, and it still matters now: federal protections for Greater Yellowstone grizzlies continue to be contested.

The second to last morning of the workshop, we came around a curve and hit a huge wall of cars. A bear jam – finally. I got out and went up to one of the rangers managing the crowd and found out it was indeed 399 and her single cub-of-the-year.

I worked my way through the parked cars and the people – hundreds of people – to a place where I could see the entire meadow and the woods that she was thrashing around in, and staked out my space to wait. A few minutes later I started to see her moving out of the shrubs and everyone just poof disappeared. My heart was pounding and I was completely alone with her and that cub. Being that close to something so beautiful, huge and wild and extremely dangerous was way beyond exhilarating.

I kept pace with them as they wandered casually across the meadow through the wildflowers, occasionally glancing at the crowd, which I just maneuvered around like they weren’t even there. They crossed the road and eventually went into the trees on the other side. It was 25 minutes of pure joy. The Tetons have become my happy place, and that morning is a big part of why.

When they had gone, I suddenly noticed there were an awful lot of people around and wondered where the truck and my group were. I eventually ran into one of my workshop friends; it was his first time with a grizzly, too. He was elated and likewise an emotional mess.

I didn’t get any good photos. I really had no idea what I was doing at the time, but it didn’t matter. I felt incredibly lucky to witness this and just be there in her world for a few minutes. That feeling was the thing I couldn’t get enough of.

All I could think was, “I want more of this. More, please.”

I came home and had the bear tattooed on my calf a week later so I would never forget it.

399 was killed by a car south of Jackson in October 2024, at the incredible age of 28. So I know I’ll never have that particular experience again, which makes those 25 minutes feel even more extraordinary now.

I’ve had that feeling again since, although never quite on that scale. I spent 10 minutes alone with a great gray owl hunting in Minnesota in 2025, less than 30 feet away, and had the same feeling of getting to be inside its world for a little while. There’s some smaller version of that in almost every really good wildlife encounter. It is addictive.

This is why wildlife is my thing. It’s not just getting keeper shots, which is wonderful when it happens. It’s the entire experience packed around that that I can’t get enough of. When I’m out in nature, the rest of the world disappears. Add wildlife and “magical” is probably the most accurate word I have for how that feels.

Somewhere along the way photography became one of the most important things. But still, work and life, and never as much time to shoot and travel as I want.

I do feel like I’m coming late to the party. There’s a little bit of always feeling like I’m catching up and needing to squeeze in as much photography as I can, but fortunately, I have a really hard time staying still.

More, please.