The difference between them is that rhythm is to do with movement across a picture (or more properly, the movement of the eye through a picture) while pattern is essentially static and has to do with area.
His explanation in The Photographer's Eye is more illuminating:
A pattern does not encourage the eye to move in a particular way, but rather to roam across the surface of the picture. It has at least an element of homogeneity, and, as a result, something of a static nature.
He also notes that
Patterns tend to be directionless and so often make better backgrounds than subjects in themselves.
This is much clearer. Patterns are easy. They can be found most anywhere. Here's one I snapped the other day, along with a reference to illuminate exactly what is being pictured.
Rhythm is more difficult. In order to create rhythm, it seems to me one of two things is required:
1. an appropriate amount of space, relative to the objects, so that the eye has a chance to find the rhythm; and
2. contrast, a point at which the the pattern is broken. In musical terms, it's that momentary pause before the beat (the pattern) kicks back in and allows us to identify the rhythm.
Wandering around with the camera trying to find rhythm is not an easy task. At least it hasn't been so far. I imagine that once I stop looking for it, the opportunities will present themselves. In the meantime, I had to complete this assignment. I found one image in the street bordering my apartment building:
And a couple more in an abandoned house a few blocks away:
Since with rhythm we're looking at the movement of the eye through a picture, I wondered how flipping a couple of these photos might affect how we "see" them. For anyone reading this, our mind is used to moving on the horizontal from left to right, but in two of the images here, the out of place element, the one that puts the pause in the rhythm, are on the left: the man sitting in the window, and the lighted doorway. Here they are below flipped. Which do you prefer?
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