Mercer Island photographer Roger Ressmeyer has done quite a bit of globe-trotting on assignments for Time, National Geographic, and other publications thatback in the dayran lots of large, lovely, color-saturated shots. In more recent years, he’s helped run stock photo agencies like Getty Images and the Bill Gates-owned Corbis. But a career-long interest has been science and the natural world, how our volatile planet treats us like small, insignificant inhabitants; and in turn, how Earth itself is a small, insignificant object in the universe. The two-dozen vivid images collected in The Beginning of Totality depict the violence of lightning strikes and the heat of lava flows. Earthquakes buckle buildings in San Francisco and acid ponds gurgle in Yellowstone. But above, the stars whirl impassively over our telescopes and observatories. And the setting sun at Stonehenge makes those rocks seem comparatively new. What we deem ancient will soon be recycled back into stardust. (Reception Thurs., Jan 13, 6 p.m., and artist talk afterward, at 7:30 p.m.) BRIAN MILLER
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 12-7 p.m.; Thu., Jan. 13, 6 & 7:30 p.m. Starts: Jan. 11. Continues through Jan. 30, 2011
