By juxtaposing a forest of Saguaro Cactus against the mountain that fills the background of this image, I am able to create a repetitive flow of vertical lines that bind these works of nature together. The slender Saguaros point directly to the vertical markings that cover the face and crown of the mountain behind them.

A tree, a shop window, and a building façade join forces here to create a harmonious image rooted in both rhythm and pattern. I noticed that the bends in the tree trunk just outside the window seemed a perfect match for the arm and elbow of the purple mannequin featured in the display. Meanwhile, a graffiti artist had framed the window itself in wavy black bars that repeat the implied body language of the body behind the glass. The golden color of the purse in the window is also replicated by the color of the tree itself, while the red decorative elements floating around the edge of the window seem to spring from the ends of the back bars that press in on them.

During my four day stay in Palm Springs, I looked for a single moment in light, time, and space that best expressed the ambiance of Palm Springs itself. I did not have to go very far to find it – this scene appeared within our hotel room window on our final evening of the trip. To make it work, I used a wideangle focal length to frame the entire shape of that window within my camera’s frame. I used spot metering to expose on the golden unbroken line of cumulous clouds flowing over the distant mountain range, causing the rhythmic pattern of palm trees in the foreground to become silhouettes. An irrelevant parking lot filled the bottom half of my frame, so I put it into deep shadow, once again using my camera's spot-metering mode. The diagonal slash of the receding window frame envelops the rhythmic march of the palms within a vanishing parallelogram that would be quite at home in the Art Deco world of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Palm Springs established itself as a premier winter desert resort during that era, and I made this image to celebrate its ambiance.

The doors repeat each other, as does the body lean of the people within them. They do not seem to acknowledge each other – each of them seems intent on simultaneously observing something else that is happening somewhere beyond the right hand edge of my frame. The repetitive design of the building’s façade links the pair of doors with a series of repetitive stacked horizontal lines. The woman came to her door with a broom in hand, while the man stood in his doorway with only time to kill. Yet each of these people are linked in this moment of repetitive glances.

A child grabs hold of Robert Indiana’s famous “Love” sculpture as the sun casts her shadow on the huge last letter of the word. Her other hand comes to her chin, as she pauses to think about what the adult behind her may be saying. Her shadow conveys how she feels as a silhouetted profile. I was able to catch the shadow of one hand relating to her actual hands, as well as to the hand of the adult. All of these hands provide a rhythmic journey through the image, and provide the inspiration for the title.

The four men in this image are on their way to a meeting – the man who heads the procession holds a two-way radio in his hand as three others dutifully follow his lead. I built this image around the repeating rhythms of the backlighted silhouetted figures as they relate to the tree trunk that divides the group in half.

The British Columbia Parliament was not in session the day we visited Victoria, and an iron gate was barring entrance to the chamber. I found this gate to be more visually interesting than the chamber itself. It runs across a mosaic floor featuring a rhythmic flow of decorative scrollwork. The bars themselves, along with stylized wrought iron maple leaves at the bottom, rhythmically repeat themselves as they marched across my frame. The rich red carpet adds a lush note to the scene, but the key to the image (no pun intended) is the golden lock that breaks the rhythms and binds the two halves of the gate together.

As I made this image at sunset, a strong desert wind was blowing, causing the slender plants in front of me to lean forward, just as the oncoming cloud in the sky seems to be doing. I made many images of the fragile and transitory relationship between this cloud and those desert plants, and this one had just the right rhythmic flow to it. The main cloud does not overlap any of the plants, keeping just the right spacing above the tiny buds that blow in the wind. The warm bands of color that illuminate the background and paint the clouds pink is essential to meaning as well. The color gives life and vitality to the wind and helps the image speak its piece.

The center island dividing Tunis’ most elegant street, Avenue Bourguiba, comes to life at night below a series of lighted decorations leading to the bell tower that dominates the scene. Framing and layering the bell tower with these ornate illuminations, I create a rhythmic progression through the image that carries the eye from the top of the frame to the bottom, and then lifting it to the top again via the tower at the end of the road.

Three worshippers are already at the gate of this 9th century mosque, waiting for it to open for prayer. I originally saw only the two men at the right, and made the image because of the rhythmic repetition of their legs. When editing the image later, I noticed the third man, seated at the edge of the entrance itself. His raised knees echo the raised knees of the men at right.

The Tunis Cathedral was built in the late 19th century during the French colonial rule of Tunisia. I frame it between the ornate lampposts from the same period that line an avenue modeled after the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Suddenly interrupting a rhythm can be just as important as maintaining a rhythm in photography, and that is what is happening in this image. Yet even while breaking the rhythmic progression of the vertical lampposts, the rounded domes on the towers of the cathedral also continue that progression by repeating the rounded shapes of the lamps, just as its vertical towers repeat the vertical lampposts.

The focal point of this image is the relationship of the rounded tombstone to the illuminated window on the other side of the church, appearing just above and to the right of it. The tombstone is facing a symbolically glowing arch of eternity. To support that concept, I gather into the frame as many repetitive elements as I can, particularly the three full windows that rhythmically echo the thrusts of both the tombstone and the illuminated arch. Those windows flow horizontally across the frame, and that flow, in turn, is supported by the horizontal pattern of the church siding. The vertical iron rods rising around the grave and the stone wall that supports them also flow horizontally. Meanwhile, a tree protrudes into the frame at the far left and then explodes into illuminated greenery at the upper right. The glowing light seen through the leaves repeats the glow through the window.

I was about to photograph the repeating rhythms and simple patterns on this bench below the ornate rhythms of the fence when this monk came by and sat down. He offered a focal point for the image that creates a striking change of pace. The rhythms here are insistent and are made more prominent by the light that strikes them. The monk sits in a chair next to the bench, and looks back at us from the shadows. When we have an image based largely on rhythm and pattern, it often can be effective to break those rhythms with a focal point. That is what I do here. The image, which began as a study of rhythm and pattern, concludes as an environmental portrait of the monk, with the rhythm and pattern now serving as context.

I began by photographing the clothes and towels themselves, mainly because of the red and yellow colors. Moments later their owner arrived, bearing more clothing, followed within minutes by a vegetable vender who parked her cart right in my frame and went to work. Such is the ebb and flow of life in this Mekong Delta community. The row of hanging clothing and towels, and the railing on the upper story of the building, create the rhythms and patterns in this image.

Albuquerque's oldest church, San Felipe de Neri is made of adobe. Named after King Philip of Spain, the church has served the city under the flags of Spain, Mexico, the New Mexico Territory, the Confederacy, and the United States. I built this image around the contrasts in both the design of the crosses and the colors. One cross is starkly simple, the other more ornate. The adobe building, shot at sunset, is golden brown, the trim white, and the sky deep blue. What makes these contrasts work together? Geometric repetition. The crosses repeat vertical and horizontal thrusts. Three roofs repeat an inverted “v” shape, pulling the viewer’s eye through the image.

A mural on the back of San Jose Mission Church at the Laguna Pueblo near Albuquerque mysteriously extends its influence upwards, along a glowing wall. That glowing wall repeats the path of the curving painted steps as it soars out of a stylized painting of the mission and continues its flow along a diagonal path towards the upper right hand corner, leaving us to imagine where all the energy expressed here might be headed.

Ubin Island is just a short bumboat ride away from Singapore. We spent a day exploring its hills and quarries. As we disembarked, we passed this woman having her morning cup of coffee. I organized the image around the repeating rhythms created by the chairs that face, and ultimately embrace, her. The verticality of the back slats is subtly repeated by the ribs on her cup, while the pattern of her shirt and the curve of her hair echoes the curving backs of the plastic chairs.

Rows of memorial tablets commemorate the dead at this old temple. Typically, such tablets are elaborate tributes. This group, however, is not. The tablets are simple blocks of inscribed wood. Photographs of the dead are often tucked in next to them. An accidental fire has singed and discolored both the tablets and the photographs. I layer this image by anchoring it with three haunting, badly discolored memorial photographs. The rhythmic repetition of the tablets moves the eye back to a second layer and three more photographs with smaller, less distinct detail. The third layer contains more repetitive rows of tablets, gradually fading into soft focus. The rhythms create a pattern that symbolizes the inevitable. This haunted image reminds us that life and death is a continuous process, without end.

These were the world's tallest towers from 1998 to 2004, and remain the highest twin structures on earth. I abstract the structure by interpreting it as an interlocking pattern of curving and linear windows. In doing so, I provide an unusual close-up look at the building’s metallic and glass façade which completely fills the frame. This photograph does not describe the building. Rather, the form and shape of the building itself is replaced by a pattern of repeating elements that offer an insight into its character – strong, supportive, modern, simple and interdependent.

By moving well below this man doing Tai Chi on a Shanghai monument to China’s revolution, I was able to create an echo effect, linking the interlocked position of his arms to the juxtaposed hammer and sickle on the wall just below him. By moving to my left, I am also able to shift the position of the man towards the right side of the frame, linking the direction of his Tai Chi thrust to the flow of the rhythmic pattern of rays coming out of that hammer and sickle emblem. My low vantage point places him directly between that emblem and the Chinese inscription behind him. My low perspective not only energizes the image by mobilizing its rhythms and patterns -- it also suggests that China’s historical past may be very much alive in this man’s mind. It also demonstrates how critical our vantage point can be in terms of organizing rhythms and patterns as meaning.

While these grinning construction workers were happily posing for the four other photographers in our group, I moved well over to one side, aligning them with the pattern created by the colored boards hanging on the wall behind them. The boards rhythmically carry the eye through the picture, and reinforce the echoing body language of the arms and hands of the workers.

Dancing with red fans is a popular form of exercise in China’s parks. I abstract this woman, dancing in Nanjing’s Stone City Park, by photographing her from behind and backlighting her, so that the fans become almost translucent. Dance itself is made up of rhythmic, repetitive moves, and I’ve tried to emphasize that in this image. One side of the photo repeats the other – with her arms and hands held at the same angles, and with the fans repeating each other’s arcs as they move through space. Within each fan, there is a pattern of wooden supports. The transparent arcs that form around these patterns repeat the arcs of the billowing outer edges of the fans.

Seven wet tourists, sharing five tiny umbrellas, try to keep dry as they gamely stride through a squall drenching one of China’s most famous temple complexes. There is a musical beat to this picture, based on the rhythmic repetition that undulates between the tourists, their umbrellas and their reflections on the wet pavement. It is as if we are looking at a page of soggy musical notes. The tourists, meanwhile, are abstracted into anonymity by the umbrellas except for the lady bringing up the rear. I climbed the steps of the complex’s signature structure, appropriately named the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, to get this high vantage point, as well as claiming a dry spot under its overhanging lower roof. Without this high vantage point, the rhythmic reflections don’t work.

The deities atop the roof of the Hindu Temple at the base of the stairway to the Batu Caves seem to be chanting in unison, as a storm gathers overhead. I immediately saw the rhythmic repetition in the subject itself. To make it work as expression, I abstract the figures by silhouetting them against the late afternoon sky, exposing for the brightest part of the image. This calls attention to their body language instead of drawing attention to their ornate appearance. That body language is rhythmic in itself – arms upraised, symbols in hand, the statues appear to singing as a chorus. There was virtually no color in the leaden sky, so I converted the digital file to black and white. The image becomes universal and timeless, truly a Chorus of the Gods.