Happy Sunday! Ann-Christine is the lovely hostess for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and the theme for #319 is Setting the Mood.

Weather sets the mood in many of my landscape photos. This photo was taken in the Hunan province of China during my trip in 2017. It was a photo I sneaked in while I was waiting for the other tourists to move along. It was sort of like a traffic jam – one person moves a little slower than the rest of the pack and all of a sudden, the flow starts to slow behind that person.

This place is called “the Grand Canyon” of China. It’s been said that there are only about 2 weeks of good weather in these parts per year and this was not it.

The day I visited, it was cold and rainy. I constantly had to wipe the lens of the camera as I descended down the stairs along with the throng of tourists who had chosen to visit that day. I must admit, I was miserable being in this weather – cold, soggy, and just plain damp – but the photos came out pretty amazing.

Each year, I try to head into the mountains to search for autumn colors but for some reason, I couldn’t get into the mood of doing so. Maybe it’s the weather? Of the 17 years I’ve lived in northern Utah, it’s never been this warm in the fall. It’s feeling more like late summer than autumn right now with temperatures still in the 80-degree range.

Last weekend, I headed up the nearest mountain, which was a 15-minute drive. For a moment, my mood was buoyed by the possibility of taking some beautiful picture of autumn colors as I’ve done in prior years but after a 15-minute hike and seeing this, my mood instantly felt deflated. In the distance, I could see the leaves were curled and crinkly like that of a past-peak autumn color.

I think that’s the caveat with autumn colors, it’s only beautiful when it’s viewed faraway.

Finally, people definitely have a hand to influence the mood of the photo.

I love people watching, particularly from a distance with my super-zoom lens. I was on the second floor of the Shibuya Starbucks when I saw this. I was enjoying my matcha latte while watching people cross the busy intersection. I was told any tourist should try to walk the Shibuya Crossing at least once and honestly, I felt like I was just crossing an ordinary street.

Watching from above was a lot more interesting. It was like watching a flood-gate swing wide open and people began rushing across the street – some frantically while some took their time and even stopped in the middle to take selfies.

Just as I had to leave came this crowd. It looked like a funeral procession but I wasn’t (still am not) sure what was going on but whatever this was, sure got a crowd riled up and it kind of set my mood for the remainder of the day as I wondered what I’ve witnessed.