COOLING towers emit nothing more than steam and yet, in Bruce Wodder’s photographs, they transmit an ominous feeling. There’s something about their size and shape — that wide mouth atop a curved cylinder, like a giant piece of pottery on the wheel — that creates an imposing presence on the landscape.

   Landscapes like our backyards.

   Over the past two years, Mr. Wodder, a commercial photographer whose clients include AT&T, Nike and Club Med, has been photographing cooling towers along with high-tension wires, industrial plants and refineries, highway off ramps, and other structures. He juxtaposes them with houses that live in their shadows. Living in the Shadow, his first fine-art exhibit, is on view at Gallery 14 in Hopewell through July 5.

   For Mr. Wodder, the combination of home and industry creates a compelling visual composition. “I just find it amusing and interesting, composition wise,” he says during a phone interview from his home in rural Hunterdon County. “Here’s a normal life and a monstrosity right there next to it.”

   Before the subject fully materialized he had been working on a personal project of photographing houses near high-tension wires. He stumbled on a paper mill while on vacation in South Carolina. “There are a lot of things you can do with this,” he recalls thinking.

   He used Google satellite to scout sites and find potential structures to shoot. Arranging tripods to shoot somewhat-sensitive subjects like chemical plants, Mr. Wodder was questioned by police on a couple of occasions. “I think both times some neighbor saw me,” he says. “People have their antennae up. Maybe it looks kind of odd, but I wasn’t trying to be sneaky.” The cops couldn’t arrest him or issue a summons, though they more or less told him to get lost.

   Some of the photographs may provoke an environmental concern, and though Mr. Wodder understands that reaction, raising awareness is not his objective.

   ”I have no axe to grind,” he says. “I’m neutral. Personally I like clean air and water and all that other stuff, but (for this project) I just like the interesting fact of the storage tanks next to these homes, that our lives are right next to these noises or smells or potential dangers.”

   Though the photographs stand alone without supplementing information — Mr. Wodder did not interview homeowners — a viewer wonders how they are affected, from the noise of a highway overpass to the horizon-less view of an oil refinery.

   Besides the subject matter, only one thing unites these pictures. “They’re all visually interesting,” says Mr. Wodder, who is self-trained.

   Photography was one of Mr. Wodder’s hobbies while he was growing up. He took pictures for his high school yearbook but largely took a hiatus during college. He attended the University of Tennessee on a track scholarship, studying marketing and communication.

   His professional photography career began in 1981 when he landed a job as a photo assistant in New York City. In the 1990s he expanded his resume to include video, a format he initially knew very little about. He bought a camera and began to teach himself. Then, along with Jane and Arthur Klonsky, Mr. Wodder formed Yellow Dog Productions in 1993. The company shoots business, sports and lifestyle spots in 35-mm motion and still stock photography for Getty Images.

   Though he’s had a darkroom since he was 11 years old, Mr. Wodder had never taken a traditional dark room class until 2006. After he turned 50 he enrolled in a master printing class with photographer/author George Tice, who has received fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

   ”I developed bad habits over the years without being corrected,” Mr. Wodder says. “It was more of a technique thing. You can always use some pointers because you can get sloppy along the way.”

   Mr. Wodder printed each of the exhibit’s 19 silver gelatin prints, culling from a pool of images about double that number. As he continues to pursue the subject, he one day hopes to collect the images into a book.

   ”I do so much commercial work, it’s so nice to step away from that stuff and shoot a personal project that doesn’t require an assignment or specific layout,” he says. “It gets me to recharge my batteries and makes me feel like I’m a photographer again.”

   By that Mr. Wodder simply means he can focus on taking pictures, free from the extraneous aspects of his job like uploading and manipulating photos on the computer.

   ”Digital is either your best friend or your worst friend,” he says. “Not too long ago I’d hand the film off to the lab. Now all of a sudden I’m the lab. I feel like a computer jockey.”

   Clarifying his remarks, Mr. Wodder says that such irritants are just that and no more. “I love everything I do,” he says, adding that he’s always taking pictures, whether he’s at work or on vacation. He likes to set aside time from work to shoot for no other reasons than personal pleasure and the freedom from professional pressures.

   ”Personal projects are all about your personal vision,” he says. “If everyone likes it, great. But first and foremost I’m my own audience.”

   Except that, with a public exhibition, he now has a second audience. “I think I always wanted to have a show,” he says. “A lot of commercial photographers, when they put on a show it’s not that different from what they shoot commercially. If you looked at my commercial stuff, you’d see a 180-degree difference.”

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  Living in the Shadow, a photography exhibit by Bruce Wodder, is on view at Gallery 14, 14 Mercer St., Hopewell, through July 5. The Arts Council of Princeton’s Children’s Show is on view in the small gallery; 609-333-8511; www.photogallery14.com