Tim Hyde

The photographs in Tim Hyde’s “Night Walks” were made outside, but they often involve peering into something. That might be a shadowy passageway, partly open doors or a window that reveals a lamp that’s dim and yet the brightest thing within the frame. This Multiple Exposures show compels visitors to look as hard into the gloom as the D.C. photographer does.

Hyde takes inspiration from “Night Walking: A Nocturnal History of London,” British novelist Matthew Beaumont’s account of notable writers’ wanderings after dark. Hyde’s statement notes that he began his evening strolls long ago with his grandfather and that now the treks accentuate his vulnerability: “I can’t deny that testing my primal fears is an important part of the nightwalking,” he writes.

So a few of Hyde’s pictures include murky figures, unknown and thus potentially threatening. One depicts a police-line tape, mostly out of focus yet visible enough to bisect the space dynamically. More often, though, the black-heavy photos focus on sources of illumination — in one case red but usually warm yellows. Hyde’s walks may be unusual, but he, like all photographers, is on a quest for special light.