We’re going to bet this wouldn’t happen at your day job.

In a captivating National Geographic video, photographer Mattius Klum describes his amazing close encounter with a lioness while on a photo shoot, and shares the incredible image he took.

Klum says he was sitting next to a stream, where the lioness didn’t see or hear him.

“I’m there with her, and it felt really good — until she started walking towards me,” he says. “She was just walking towards me, closer and closer, and then all of a sudden you feel very small. It’s a unique, unique experience in that way.”

Klum describes how he was “half lying down” with his lens as the creature came closer, unaware of his presence. He realized he had to let her know he was there, and panned his lens slightly.

The intrigued lioness crept within 15 feet of Klum and then stopped and rolled over, looking at him upside down. That was when he captured his shot, which you can see at around 3:24.

“I felt emotional. I felt that this animal gives me this experience that’s both damn scary, honestly, but at the same time truly, truly beautiful,” he says. “Your mind plays games, and I felt she’s calling for my help — take a picture and save our species; we have 300 left.”