Whitney’s black and white images of unusual outdoor structures were photographed across the US in such a way that the details are obscured and appear as night images or negatives. The resulting images appear soft and ethereal, making the structures eerie and other-worldly.    

The series of photographs in “Obscure Structures” explores haunting and abstract architectural forms that seem to exist in a parallel universe. These enigmatic structures were captured over years of travel throughout America, and reveal a love for obscure vernacular architecture. Each soft and ethereal “day-for-night” image was captured on large format negative film using a “zone plate”, an extremely simple optic similar to a pinhole. The structures are transformed from their common utilitarian function of storing road salt, burning wood chips or treating waste water into a menagerie of mysterious anthropomorphic characters that inhabit a twilight world where imagination and abstraction freely combine.

Bryan Whitney is a fine art photographer from New York who specializes in installation work and alternative imaging techniques, including x-rays, 3-D and lens-less photography. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Psychology of Art, holds a Master of Fine Arts from Temple University and was the recipient of a Fulbright lecture grant. Whitney’s work has been exhibited in galleries in the US and internationally and featured in numerous publications. In addition to traveling the globe for special projects for various museums, he teaches photography at the International Center of Photography in New York.