The forest was quiet that morning — thick with mist, heavy with the sound of life. When John J. King II entered Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in 2011, he carried only his camera, his curiosity, and the hope of catching a glimpse of the rarest creatures on Earth: the mountain gorillas.
He never expected they’d come to find him.
On his first day, he watched from a respectful distance as a gorilla family moved through the trees — mothers nursing their young, juveniles wrestling in the leaves, and the great silverback keeping watch. The encounter alone felt miraculous. But the next day, something even more astonishing happened.
While resting near his campsite, King suddenly heard rustling in the forest. Out from the shadows emerged the same gorilla family — not by accident, but by choice. They had traveled miles to find him.
The young ones led the way, their dark eyes curious, their movements bold. As King crouched down quietly with his camera, one of the juveniles reached out, tugged his arm, and began to climb over him. Soon, others followed — touching his hair, sniffing his jacket, and gently patting his head as if welcoming him into their troop.
At first, the silverback seemed wary. He grunted, stretched his long arm toward one of the youngsters as if to pull it back. But then, after a long pause, he sat down and simply watched — calm, composed, allowing the moment to unfold.
For nearly an hour, the forest fell into a spell of silence broken only by the soft sounds of breath, touch, and trust. King later described how one gorilla even began to “groom” him, brushing at his hair and giving him what he jokingly called a “head massage.” When they finally moved on, he whispered to his camera, barely able to contain his awe:
“I’m a gorilla.”
There was no planning, no baiting, no interference — just a rare and natural moment of connection between man and wild.
For King, that morning changed everything. He had come to photograph gorillas. Instead, he found himself accepted — if only for a brief, magical moment — as one of their own.
Sometimes, the wild doesn’t need to be chased.
Sometimes, if you’re quiet enough, it chooses to find you.
