Wolf encounter: A photographer on what humans have lost

What’s the one thing people should know? Modern life has reduced how often we are truly required to meet the world on its own terms — until we encounter something that refuses to adapt to us. It lasted only a few minutes, but Norwegian wildlife photographer Lasse Huldt Pedersen remembers his closest encounter with a wolf in meticulous detail. Wolves usually smell humans long before they see them, but on a late summer day in 2022, Pedersen believes the wind carried his scent away from the apex predator, allowing them to come nearly face-to-face. As he stood quietly among the pine trees in eastern Norway near the Swedish border, patiently waiting to spot a wolf, one appeared on a rocky rise above him.