Blue Mesa Reservoir is Colorado's largest body of water and the largest Kokanee Salmon fishery in the United States. I've always been curious how places get their names. To my mind there ought to be a "Blue Mesa" close by, maybe there is and I just haven't found it. Maybe it's from the abundance of blue light in the area, certainly a striking feature. I almost drove through this area without stopping because of the huge exposure range. Then I started to think of it as a challenge.
Standing on the hillside in a full wind attarcted to the quality of blue in the water, I started shooting for the ice and wave patterns, but kept looking up to the hill in the background. So, I shivered left and right until finding this large textured ice in the foreground thinking it might balance the larger scene. The square format is an anomaly around here, to be sure. But this composition had to be shot telephoto to maintain the compression, which meant two exposures to maintain the foreground. There's something added by that compositing scheme which allows the photo to be considered in several parts as well as the whole. My eye yo-yos up & down when I look at this, much like when I was standing there.
