BEAR CROSSING

ISO 100, f/20, 8 seconds, 19mm

  Took a day of vacation from work today to meet my friend John Deas and his wife Lynn and hike to Abraham's Falls in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
  The hike was amazing. 5 miles round trip up and down the mountain sides and along Abraham's Creek. As moderately difficult as the hike is there are tons of people who make the rocky trek to a gorgeous waterfall.
  About 1/2 way along the trail, we were just talking away while I was watching the ground to avoid rocks and roots in the trail. I happened to just pick up my head and about 25 feet in front of me was a Black Bear munching on something in one of the dead tree trunks in the brush. We all stopped and started backing up carefully and in a minute or two the bear just wondered away and we continued on.
  This was the first time I had ever come face-to-face with a Black Bear on foot. It was scary, exhilarating, and cool all at the same time. The bear acted like he didn't even notice us and didn't have a care as to what was going on.
  After we arrived at Abraham's Falls, I waded into the creek to catch a couple of compositions and then worked my way up close to the falls where John was.
  As I was leaving I noticed these yellow leaves swirling in an eddy between these rocks and knew I had to get that shot.  I took two exposures, one for the eddy swirl and another for the waterfall that was overexposed in the eddy swirl shot. I then combined them in Photoshop Elements.