After threading our way through the snow-swept Sonora Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we descended into a valley of rolling hills and undulating wet roads that cross the land where California and Nevada come together. I made this image, one of the most unusual perspectives I’ve ever photographed, with my 432mm telephoto lens. Looking back into the mountains we had just traversed, the rain-slicked road glistens in the late afternoon sun, and the incongruous sense of compression offered by this very long lens gives the scene the look of an old watercolor. It offers us an unusual way to perceive depth perspective – as our eyes go back into this image, everything seems to flatten and bunch together. The road itself suddenly seems to end and not reappear. The image becomes impressionistic rather than realistic. It is, in essence, both a painting and a photograph, all in one.