Trevor Paglen in his practice interrogates the carceral and surveilled landscape. Most handy to this investigation is that Paglen’s photographs are curated on his self-run website, where he systematically attaches concepts to his work. This is where, more specifically, Paglen’s small series of three photographs, titled Color Studies, is categorized under “Skies” and “Form.” Though not among the most studied or widely circulated works of his career, these images immediately stand out for their capturing of light and darkness—stripped of clear subject matter or figuration, yet retaining the semblance of the carceral skyscape which they are captured from. I ask how we might approach these pieces to better understand Paglen’s compositions of abstracted light as a mode of representing and critiquing institutions of detention. How might light, in this captured context, be directed toward a larger formal concern of visibility? What might these images reveal about Paglen’s role not only as landscape photographer, but also as a disseminator of carceral imagery?