The landscapes in Maureen Minehan’s “There and Back” investigate the vast realm between very little and nothing at all. The D.C. photographer’s Multiple Exposures Gallery show often features images of a single man-made object — a house, a pier, a lifeguard’s chair — in a natural setting. The solitude is emphasized by darkness, ephemeral light or mists that bid to obscure the scene altogether.

The vignettes, all observed on Maryland’s Eastern Shore or the Delaware coast, are stark and mysterious, although there is a humorous interlude: two tiny people, the only humans to inhabit any of the photos, sit on a beach next to a banner that proclaims, “yoga.” The word is legible, but much of the image is beguilingly soft. That’s characteristic of these pictures, which include several for which Minehan probably used long exposures to blur breaking surf into a cottony white-blue expanse.

The subtle textures weren’t all captured through the lens. Minehan prints on fibrous paper and sometimes uses computer manipulation to incorporate gently hued brushstrokes derived from watercolor painting. These meld with the photographed skies to accentuate hazy clouds and diffused sunlight. The effect is faint, but in pictures of mist, shadow and emptiness every small addition is world-shaping.

Maureen Minehan: There and Back Through May 19 at Multiple Exposures Gallery, Torpedo Factory, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. multipleexposuresgallery.com. 703-683-2205.