I found this passenger sitting alone with his thoughts in a vintage observation car on “The Canadian” running between Toronto and Vancouver. This car entered service in the mid-1950s, and has changed very little since. The curving glass windows look out on forests of pine and a track that seems to follow the train forever.

The chairs that circle the interior of the car have been cradling passengers for more than a half-century, encasing this traveler in nostalgic atmosphere. His mood is reflective – perhaps he may be thinking of past journeys in similar railroad cars over the years?

The Schooner Thomas E. Lannon offers tourists a glimpse of Gloucester’s seafaring history by taking them for short sails, even in the morning fog. It was the fog that made this shot so atmospheric – it seems like a ghost out of the past, even though it was built and launched in 1997. The colors of its American flag intensify its historical presence.

Instead of shooting the sunset itself, I shot its effect on the clouds that were exploding in the sky behind me. I use abstracted Saguaro cacti pointing skyward to frame the massive golden flow of evening clouds, to create a majestic and emotionally dynamic mood.

The effect of rain and fog on mountain scenery can be strikingly atmospheric.

In this scene, a mysterious mist drifts across the valleys that lie between the hills flanking the base of Piestewa Peak, the highest mountain in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. The sun can’t cut through the clouds that envelope the peak, but its presence does lend a touch of warm color, as do the patches of green vegetation that line the rocky slopes. Sharp eyes might even notice the presence of several saguaros that stand like sentinels on the diagonal crest that slices though the center of the image. I made this image from my own back yard, using new technology – a Panasonic G1, the world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera. This lens offers a focal length equivalent to 90-400mm, and is equipped with a UV/Haze filter. I zoomed it all the way out to cut through the mist and reveal atmospheric detail in the scene, which is more than a mile away.

I am always looking for “Hopper Light” – the play of morning light and shadow upon old buildings, street scenes filled with the color and geometry that enrich so many of the wonderful oil paintings created by Edward Hopper. I found it here on a Manhattan side street. I stand across the street from this scene, and use a 28mm lens, which allows me to get close enough for detail, yet still retain the scope and scale of the street scene itself. I anchor the scene around a single man who stands alone under an orange awning of his place of work, waiting for admittance. The silent, nostalgic mood that I try to express here is also incongruous – just out of camera range, thousands of people are scurrying to work along Third Avenue. But this man stands here alone, in “Hopper Light.” Only the contemporary design of the awning places him in the 21st century. Everything else – the rhythmic window placement, the green and red colors, the flow of shadows upon the street, could look just as it might have appeared to Edward Hopper himself when he painted “Early Sunday Morning” in 1930 ( http://www.alledwardhopper.com/58/early-sunday-morning-by-edward-hopper )

In the 1850’s, a group of Cantonese miners prospected for gold here. Today, no trace of them is left. Only the name of the place speaks of those who once lived and died here. On a hill high over the tiny community, a Catholic graveyard now stands. I photographed it from a distance, juxtaposing towering living trees over the graves of the dead that lie below them. A deep blue sky rising over a bank of white clouds on the horizon gave great beauty to the image, but it was not the mood I wanted. When I converted the image to black and white, the mood changed – the image becomes stark and haunting. The blue sky changes to a gray curtain, descending on the tombs outlined against the distant cloudbank. It was exactly the mood for this image of life and death in juxtaposition.