Pink dawn light on snow-streaked Sierra peaks photographed at 172mm from high on Mount Whitney, California.

Rothko's Sierra

Mount Whitney, California

The title is the idea. At 172mm the ridges stop reading as mountains and become horizontal bands of colour stacked one on the next — about as close to a colour field as landscape photography gets. Long lenses do exactly that: they flatten distance into layers. Handheld at ISO 1000 and 1/640, because at that hour and that temperature a tripod was never going to happen.

Nikon Z 7_2 · TAMRON 150-500mm F/5-6.7 Di III VC VXD A057Z · 172mm · f/8 · 1/640 · ISO 1000

July 20, 2026

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