Miletus, a relatively obscure archeological site, was the greatest and wealthiest Greek city before the Persians occupied it in the middle of the 6th century BC. It is regarded as the birthplace of Western philosophy and science – where philosophers first began to speculate about naturalistic, rather than supernatural, reasons for how the world works. Today Miletus is a picturesque ruin, in every sense of those words. I interpret Miletus here as it might appear in a 19th century romantic painting – brushed with mist, and bathed in a soft nostalgic light. I reduced the color intensity somewhat to create this effect. I carry the eye forward through a foreground layer strewn with overgrown foundations, leading to a shell of an ancient structure, and finally letting it come rest in a hazy, pastoral background. I thought it an appropriate rendering for a place known for its philosophers and their ideas.

The dome of the Cathedral of St. John’s dominates the modest skyline of the fortress city of Valletta. I photographed our arrival in Malta from the highest deck of a cruise ship, approaching through a light rain. The pilot boat, which is guiding us into the harbor, creates a wake in the foreground that leads towards the city. The boat’s small scale offers an incongruous contrast to the broad cityscape before us. The fine mist softens detail, and complements the delicate interplay of light, color, and shadow that combine here to express the nature of this historic place.

As we traveled through south central Idaho, the weather turned on us – it began as light rain, then turned to snow showers and sleet. Suddenly, the sun broke through the layer of heavy overcast clouds, illuminating a swath of spring green on the distant hills. We pulled off the road, stumbled into the weeds at our feet, and began to photograph the light as it created five different areas of intensity before our eyes. Using a 120mm focal length, I held my camera vertically to stress these differences. The weeds at my feet take on a muted gold coloration. The clouds create a shadowy dark green band in the middle of the frame, while at the same instant, the sun grazes a field of glowing earth in the middle distance. The dark hills at the back of the scene create a portal for the focal point of the image – the glowing emerald valley just below the descending curtain of gray clouds at the top of the frame. Sometime, changing weather conditions can be a catalyst for expression –- that is the case here.

Early morning colors in the desert can be very intense, reflecting the color of the sun on rock, sand, and plants alike. In this image, I layer my image with the play of light and shadow on a curving line of sage, and then back it up with the richly colored butte. The clouds that stream out from the butte seem to echo the horizontal structure of the primary and secondary subjects.

The morning light and the trail of a receding sea give the wet sand a tactile sheen, leaving an array of rocks and boulders that speak of the glaciers that once covered this area. I like the play of light and shadow as well – the image flows from blue to black as it reads from both left to right and top to bottom.

The fall colors were just starting to show about the time we visited Jasper. By making this image early in the morning, when much of this river valley was in shadow, I was able to paint the new colors upon a darkly forested canvas. I only retain a sliver of the blue gray lake at the bottom of the frame, and remove all sky from the image. I virtually fill my frame with trees, featuring orange Aspens against a field of dark pines.