I darken the room and set up the photo paper, creating something like a stage for light to act. Now, whatever happens in the world outside of the room plays out on what I created. Then I sit back and let the world unfold, and whatever happens, happens.
—Vera Lutter

Inspired by the architecture and light of urban and industrial landscapes, sites of transit, historical and contemporary monuments, and art spaces around the world, Vera Lutter employs unique camera obscuras to produce one-off, large-scale, black-and-white negative photographs.

Lutter constructs her cameras from a diverse collection of darkened chambers that has ranged from steamer trunks to shipping containers. Hanging photosensitive paper on their back walls, opposite a lensless aperture, she uses long exposure times that span from hours to several months. The resulting shots picture their subjects as ghostlike luminous traces, with impossibly dark skies and the shadowy recesses of buildings transformed into brilliant white flares. Fragments of Time Past, featured photographs of Attica’s ancient architecture, together with images of the Greek temples of Paestum, Italy, and of classical statues housed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Embracing her medium’s durational aspect, Lutter revealed the beauty of these antique subjects in a strikingly contemporary way.