People are seen through plate-glass surfaces covered with condensation, or in mirrors that slice up space. His images depict a complex interaction of people, architecture and weather that is full of fragmented, partial, veiled or multiplied forms and figures.

Leiter captured the passing illusions of everyday life with a precision that might almost seem scientific, if it weren't so poetically resonant and visually layered. But the abstract allure of his work doesn't rely on soft focus, a persistent, often irritating photographic ploy, or the stark isolation of details, in the manner of Aaron Siskind or early Harry Callahan. His painter's instincts served him well in his emphasis on surface, spatial ambiguity and a lush, carefully calibrated palette. Leiter was a photographer less of people than of perception itself.

Unlike such well-known street photographers as Robert Frank and William Klein, Mr. On his own in New York, he invented his own form of street photography, as the little-seen images in this show demonstrate. He was 23 and intended to become a painter, but within two years he was deep into photography, first black-and-white, then color. Saul Leiter came to New York from Pittsburgh in 1946. Early Color Howard Greenberg Gallery 41 East 57th Street, Midtown Through Jan.

Woman by Saul Leiter