The Theaters series is composed of photographs of old American movie theaters and outdoor drive-in theaters. Sugimoto takes long-exposure photographs by leaving the camera shutter open from the start to the end of the movie being shown, condensing the light of the picture being projected onto the screen into a single photograph. What results is an image of the screen glowing in pure white; with the story and imagery of the movie gone, the magnificence of the venue stands out starkly in the black-and-white shots.
Confronted with a blank screen, the viewer is left to conjure up scenes from their own memories and imagination. Presenting films that no one has seen and a “photographic time” that no one has experienced, the series challenges us to contemplate the essence of images.