From the window of an Acela swifting down the tracks between Boston and D.C., the East Coast landscape unspools. Passengers get whisked past the backs of old brick buildings, shuttered factories, lapping bays, old bridges, sun spangling off wetland, graffiti muraling surfaces. In “On Time: Along the Northeast Corridor’’ (Blurb), renowned photographer Rosamond Purcell and her husband, Dennis, capture the route, taking panoramic photographs from the window with an iPhone. The effect is a stuttered sort of landscape, staggered glimpses of stations, a tangled heap of scrap metal, a copse of birch trees over water. Purcell is known for her highly detailed portraits of birdlife, nests, and eggs, and her Somerville studio is a wunderkabinett of curios and detritus, skulls and old sewing machines. But the focus of this book is motion, unstill life.

NINA MACLAUGHLIN