Michael James Slattery is building memories with his spooky luminist fine art creations.

A 19th-century art style focusing on the detailed study and precise, glowing effects of light and atmosphere in landscapes, luminism is the medium in which Slattery dwells.

“My goal ultimately with my work is about solving a problem,” said Slattery in his art studio workshop tucked away in the Midway District.

Of luminism, Slattery recalled a time working in the darkroom when he had an epiphany that forever altered his approach to developing photographs. He realized, through digital camera technology, that he could “accentuate the mind’s eye,” pointing out that “what the eye sees is much greater than anything we can reproduce.”

This has led him to conclude, “trying to bridge that gap I believe is what art’s about.”

Slattery has crafted over 10,000 luministic prints since 2007. Every one of them is made by hand in his own lab with no print house or outside framer. Printing each piece with archival methods, he builds each frame. And every one of his works is a numbered limited edition.

The luminist’s favorite subjects are landmarks – bridges, avenue and boulevard signs, skylines, and piers, especially Ocean Beach’s Pier, which Slattery has a special affinity for.

Slattery noted he’s always had a photographic bent. “I’ve been taking pictures since I was a kid; it was just magic like Disney,” he enthused, adding, “It was real. This was a magic that I could taste, touch, feel and smell. That was the fascination.”

But, lamented Slattery, “I had no mentors to teach me how to do what I was doing.”

“What am I going to do with this, how am I going to make that work?” Slattery remembers asking himself before experimenting with luministic techniques in the traditional darkroom.

“I put a negative in an enlarger, blasted it on a wide sheet of paper and then changed that negative, through layering,” he said of his technique. “What I was doing was taking what I learned in the traditional darkroom, applying it to a digital darkroom to blend light.”

Slattery sold his first piece at the Ocean Beach Farmer Market.

In 2009, he decided to do a luministic interpretation of multiple photographs of Pacific Beach’s populated boardwalk. That move culminated in what has since become his trademark photographic style.

“Every single picture had people in it,” noted Slattery, adding that he was under a time constraint, which led him to publish the fuzzy images containing barely discernible ghosts without modifying them. “Happy accidents with ghosts are all over this idea of luminism. It was a blessing.”

The artist had an interesting take on the subjects of his work, all landmarks of one kind or another. Slattery has spoken of how he animates the inanimate on his website.

“The ultimate goal is to show how the concrete, asphalt, wood, paint, plastic, and glass we use to create our societies are just as important as the trees, mountains, dirt, and seascapes we place them among,” he said.