When you get of off your float plane at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park, Alaska, the first thing you have to do is report directly to “bear school.” In this brief orientation, you are taught how to behave when the inevitable bear encounter happens. I had just “graduated” from bear school, and had only seen one brown bear in person (at a great distance) when I rounded a corner on the trail and saw this guy coming towards me. I stepped off of the trail into the woods like you’re supposed to do, and talked to the bear to let it know where I was, while simultaneously trying to get a photo through the trees and bushes between us. I backed my 100-400 zoom lens out to 100, and watched the bear fill the frame, and then overfill the frame, and then overwhelm the frame… my first encounter with an Alaskan brown bear.