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I stumbled upon this scene last month. I had just watched a very bland sunset from Cook’s Meadow and made my way to the other side of the meadow. I was in Yosemite primarily to shoot the lunar rainbow over Yosemite falls but I had a couple of hours to wait for the conditions to be right.

For much of the year, this meadow is ugly and brown but in the spring time it bursts to life wearing a lush green can only be experienced; not described. While the rivers and falls are raging, the water in the meadows remains quiet. What struck me about this scene was it’s ability to tell both stories. The absolute calm of the water in the meadow with the reflection of the raging waterfall in the distance. The meadow grasses springing to life helped to anchor and orient the scene.

Making the image was fairly straight forward. The exposure was 30.0 sec at f / 5.6 and ISO 100. I was using my Canon 24-70 f/2.8L zoomed to 57mm. I used a polarizer to bring out the reflection and the color in the grass.

Cheers