It can sometimes be difficult to find locations to photograph.  I sometimes go on a scouting mission someplace only to return disappointed by what I find.  Oh well.  Lesson learned there, right?  However, there are other times when I go on scouting mission for one place and end up finding something else entirely which makes up for it all.  I had one of those times here recently which I thought I would share about.  Check out this quiet blue reservoir I found.

Here in the southern Utah desert, there isn’t much in the way of water I can photograph.  There are some rivers and streams, but it’s nothing like southeastern Idaho in that regard.  Still, I’ve found a couple locations which can do in a pinch for lake scenes.  One is Panguitch Lake and the other is what I’m featuring here today: Wide Hollow Reservoir.

Situated right next to Escalante (the town and the national monument), this small reservoir waters the agriculture in the area.  Compared to some of the other reservoirs which I’ve photographed (and feature regularly), this reservoir is quite small.  This is because much of the local terrain doesn’t allow for farming or ranching.  What usable land there is has already been put to this use.  That is where this reservoir comes into play.

People use this area for recreation in addition to the agriculture during the summertime.  During the winter, this area sits quiet and frozen.  That’s how I discovered the place: quiet and frozen.  There was limited light left that day so I got to work finding a spot to set up my tripod and get some landscape photos.  However, I was soon to discover that my tripod would not be needed on this trip.

Thanks to some warm weather which we’ve been having lately, part of the ice has thawed.  This left cold water available for some reflections.  I knew what I wanted to do there.  I knew I wanted more of a minimalist look to these landscape photos, especially since the skies were devoid of clouds and interest.  Then I found the tree.

The tree was just what I needed to add some vertical interest to an otherwise narrow slice of interesting and reflected landscape.  It was perfect and I got to work with my camera.  A slice of the shoreline and a quick panorama finished out my shoot at the quiet reservoir.

While processing up the photos, I had the option to change the overall color scheme to something less blue.  However, I felt that the blue of blue hour was the right way to go with these photos.  The echo of blue in the sky and the water creates that “white space” around which the tree and the cliffs create the interest.  It was just what I wanted.