In the eyes of alumnus Steve Bird, cloud-covered skies and bare tree branches that stretch out like fingers offer glimpses of the spiritual world - and these "spiritual" images are now on display at SF State.

Three large-scale photographs that represent the work of Bird, an artist and SF State lecturer, hang on the walls of the Alumni Hall Art Gallery in the administration building. Titled "Fleeting Glimpses of Eternity," the exhibit runs from Jan. 21 to July 31 and offers the campus community a chance to experience Bird's artistic style.

A reception was held Wednesday to officially open the exhibit. Bird himself was present to talk about his art.

"I am fascinated...by things that will so far outlast my time on Earth that to me they seem eternal," said Bird, who received his master's degree in fine arts from SF State in 2006. "I try to capture these fleeting glimpses of eternity."

Using pigmented ink on canvas, the black-and-white photographs show scenes from nature, including one of a cloudy sky and leafless tree branches.

Bird said that the photos used in this exhibit were influenced by the work of black-and-white photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, who "tried to bridge the gap between the ordinary physical world and ephemeral spiritual world that artists rarely manage to bring to earth."

"The photographs are meant to be contemplative," gallery graduate assistant Denise Lederman said. "They try to capture [images] that are much larger than us, like emotions and feelings."

The exhibition not only seeks to feature the work of a local artist, but also to commemorate the Alumni Hall Art Gallery's first anniversary, said Lederman.

The gallery, established in the spring of 2008 to showcase the work of students and alumni on what used to be the blank walls of the administration building lobby, displays different kinds of art media with each exhibit every semester. Bird's work, the gallery's third show, is the first photographic exhibit. Bird's work was nominated for this semester's exhibit by faculty from the fine arts department.

Brian Shapiro, director of the school's Martin Wong Gallery and one of Bird's Photography I students, said that Bird likes to experiment with lines, environment and nature in his work.

"He goes out and finds ways to put stuff together with multiple images, with things that haven't been done through a camera before," Shapiro said.

He added that Bird's new work, such as the photos on display, "feels a lot more spiritual" and that printing on canvas, the medium Bird used for the current exhibit, is very different from the artist's other work.

"It doesn't produce the sharpest details," Shapiro said. Indeed, the photographs take advantage of a certain blurriness that lends a surreal, dreamlike quality to the images.

Bird's other popular photographs include panoramic shots of cityscapes, a popular one being a photograph taken from the top of the World Trade Center. Many of these works can be found on Bird's Web site, www.photopanorama.com.