Bear River Blues

Dave, I sure do like the blues and golds here and the fine sweeping gold curve. I also like the strong sense of depth that the rocks at the top provide. I could imagine a couple of alternatives that you may (or may not) want to try. First, dodge the lower 1/4 - 1/3 so that it grabs more attention. I wonder how a crop so that all you see is the blue and gold in the rocks on this side of the stream would compare. It would be quite abstract and very different from this view, but might work well in its own right. Hope you get some more rain.

A beautiful shot, even though it reflects a grim reality. The blue-gold contrast works very well, in my view. I thought you were getting a bit more of rain lately?

To me the strength of this photo lies in the juxtaposed blue and yellow, so I would prefer to crop off the top part, to make it more abstract.

Spectacular reflections! I like this comp as is, primarily for the depth and context that it provides. OTOH, there are other possibilities, too– a good image to get more than one good image from! I wonder what a crop to just below the trees at the top, leaving some of the rock for a bit of a mysterious contrast to the water. Anyway, sure which I had come across this!

Well I've got a lot of different comps from this time/place/light although none of them exactly as you suggested Mark. That is an easy crop from most of them however so maybe that should be the default. I do like the BG rocks to provide scale and context however. I've attached an alternate that might be what you had in mind Catherine. (It is a bit tight on the top edge.)

As to the rain situation, while we have had an above normal rainfall season so far, the snowpack's water content is only about 45% of normal and that is the critical metric. The ski areas are still relying on the man-made stuff due to most of the storms being of a warm, tropics-fed nature.