OLEAN, N.Y. — Nicholas Torsell’s photography exhibit, “Ghosts in the Sunlight,” will be on display starting this month at the Olean Public Library.

A free opening reception for the exhibit will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 12. The reception is sponsored by the Friends of the Olean Public Library and is open to the public. The exhibit will run through Feb. 17.

Torsell majored in literature at the University at Buffalo, but has always been looking for things in pictures, from old movies, television, to alongside the road. As he puts it, “Photos gave me a way to compose the world into something more manageable.”

The exhibit is a collection of images from a trip Torsell took in October 2016 through west Texas and New Mexico. He describes a stop, “These photos were made from a car looking for a patch of dirt on the side of the road to park. I pick up my camera wrapped in an old t-shirt and look for the thing I thought I saw from the car. Usually it’s an emptiness, a potential for something new or imagined to happen in that space. My photos share, if anything, that sense of potential.”

“Ghosts in the Sunlight” is Torsell’s first exhibition, although several years ago he produced a zine, “See It And Leave,” with Joel Brenden at Linoleum Press. The zine featured the first photos he shot on film.

The show is one of a series of library exhibits administered by the Olean Public Library and the Cattaraugus County Arts Council. The series is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

The Olean Public Library Art Gallery is located at 134 N. 2nd St. in Olean, and the hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday; and 1 to 4 p.m Sunday.