The bright yellow hat of this diner drew my attention, and I built this image around the rhythmic echoes of both its implied circle, as well as the circular clock on the wall behind her. This picture asks the viewer to consider if she is really passing the time by drinking two beverages at once (hot and cold), or if one of them may belong to someone else, who has perhaps temporarily vacated the opposite chair? The image also speaks to the passage of time itself – the woman is oblivious to the large hands of the clock relentlessly recording each departing minute a only a few feet over her head. She seems otherwise occupied – possibly lost in the pages of a good read.

I photographed this young diner through the window of a restaurant near Barcelona’s Rambla. He appears to be stirring his cup of hot chocolate and blowing on it at the same time. The hand to head gesture suggests patience – he can see it, smell it, and presumably anticipates eventually tasting it.

The fast food restaurants of Kayenta seem to be community-gathering places in this Navajo Reservation town. I was drawn to the colorful booth, and made sure to include the back of the chair at lower left as an echo of the booth’s curving wall. I made a number of images of this family as they interacted. Three of the four people here appear to be speaking here, while the fourth consumes her dinner. The adults seem to have things well under control.

The sense of taste is at very heart of dining. Here a woman uses that sense as she evaluates a forkful of pie at a community event. Good? Not so good? I leave the answer to her and to my viewers.

The small town of Forks is the only town on the western side of Olympic National Park on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. We stopped to eat at one of its restaurants. A huge head of a male elk is mounted directly above its booths. I found two of the restaurant’s waitresses waiting behind counters at the back of the room while a cook works in its kitchen. One of the waitresses seems tired – she may have been working for hours and this seems to be a chance for her to find a moment of quiet. The incongruity of the massive elk head contrasts strongly with the slow pace of daily life in a small town restaurant.

These tourists were sitting only a few feet from a window, which gives the image its soft light and gathering shadows. The neon sign above their heads advertises a local beer. I made numerous long telephoto images of these diners from a distance, while they were unaware of my presence. This was my favorite image, because it expresses the process of choice that diners encounter in any restaurant. The restaurant, constructed as a log cabin, was the only dining spot open for lunch in this small city just outside the Northeast Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The painting above the table adds local context.