On a short trip to Los Angeles, I was looking for a downtown vantage point to capture a timelapse of fast-moving traffic flowing beneath skyscrapers.

I remembered a photographer who worked on Conan O’Brien’s The Tonight Show intro sequence. He had once shared some of his that ended up unused for the intro.

Inspired by that, I estimated the location of a shot I wanted and drove over. To my surprise, a homeless camp was set up right in the middle of my planned shooting location.

I found a spot at the edge of the camp where I could shot without disturbing anyone’s personal space. After setting up my tripod, the light was just about to get right. I blocked out everything around me and focused on my camera settings when, out of the corner of my eye, the biggest rat I’ve ever seen jumped out from beneath a tent and ran right past me. I had the biggest jump scare (I may have screeched a little), but in the end, I got the shot anyway.

As I write this, I’m travelling around Southeast Asia, and every time I see a rat in the streets of Vietnam (about every day), I remember that it’s nothing compared to that giant Hollywood rat.