Boston-based photographer Rosamond Purcell's remarkable expression is distinguished by an acute sensibility toward her subject matter, which over an international, quarter-century career has ranged from scrap-yard refuse to medical oddities.

Most recently she has photographed bird eggs, nests and preserved specimens, and it is testament to her achievement that the resultant works appeal equally to birdwatchers and photography collectors.

The images were shot at the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in Camarillo, Calif., a research and educational institution dedicated to bird conservation.

"Eloquent Eggs & Disintegrating Dice: Photographs by Rosamond Purcell," at Silver Eye Center for Photography, shows 34 images from that project, including brightly colored eggs so glossy they reflect their surroundings (the Andean Tinamou), a nest with Easter basket grass woven into it (Bullock's Oriole), and a rare egg within an egg.

The images have documentary clarity, but Purcell overlays her aesthetic through such concerns as lighting, print size, focus on detail and composition.

Some egg markings are particularly amazing, as are embellished nests that resemble contemporary sculpture. Most spectacular are the patterns that cover Common Murre eggs, calligraphic-like dark streaks against a white background that are made by blood cells broken as eggs move down the birth canal.

Purcell photographed the circumference of one of the latter sectionally, and the images were assembled into a Mercator projection (a method of showing a two-dimensional map of the globe) that shows the egg as a plane. From pictographs to Pollock, Miro or Calder, the comparison to human mark-making is bemusing and uncanny.

Also exhibited are seven prints from the 2003 work "Dice: Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck," which show decomposing celluloid dice collected by magician and actor Ricky Jay. The oversized dice conjure thoughts of Jell-O cubes and ancient ruins, their inevitable disintegration a memento mori of the gaming table.

While an egg and a die may seem an unlikely pairing, the images share qualities of both stillness and transience, unified by Purcell's vision. And, as with Sandberg's grass at Verdun that "covers all," the similarity between the confection-like coating on some of Jay's dice and the calcified eggs from a French cave illustrate that all is subject to the reclamations of time.

Purcell's beautiful Harvard University Press book of the Western Foundation undertaking, "Egg & Nest," reminds the reader of the civilized, tactile, sensual and emotive pleasures of holding a book in hand as opposed to reading from a glowing light box. Printed in Italy, it combines fabulous image reproduction -- each page a magic revelation -- with informative and insightful text, Purcell being as adept with words as with a lens ($39.95 hard cover).

Silver Eye typically enlarges visitor experience with features that complement exhibitions. One may, for example, enter a drawing for a signed copy of Purcell's book by bringing a "bird enrichment item" -- whole coconut, paper towel rolls, gently used drill bits, plastic or acrylic bird toys -- which will be donated to Pittsburgh's National Aviary. David Attenborough's BBC video "The Life of Birds" plays in the gallery, and metric rulers allow easy visualization of egg sizes provided in millimeters.

This exhibition is the last at Silver Eye for executive director Linda Benedict-Jones. She leaves Dec. 5 to head the newly created department of photography at Carnegie Museum of Art.

A transition team will take over Dec. 1 comprising interim director Tanya Smith; Silver Eye communications manager Amanda Bloomfield, who will also be acting curator; and education coordinator Sylvia Ehler, also acting operations manager.

In January the board will begin a search for Benedict-Jones' replacement, and should not settle for anyone who will bring to the position less than the standards of excellence and care that she has instilled.

"Eggs" runs through Nov. 29 (closed Thanksgiving) at 1015 East Carson St., South Side. At 7 p.m. tomorrow, photographer Barry Lavery will speak about his role in a Bureau of Land Management survey on nesting hawks in Utah's West Desert ($20, members and students $15, reservations required). Pittsburgher Rick Byerly and Anna Tomczak of Lake Helen, Fla., exhibit in the New Works Gallery. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free; 412-431-1810 or visit www.silvereye.org.

The Festival of Lights Katz Plaza display closed early, but the projections have been extended through Friday on the Omni William Penn Hotel, Downtown, and on the Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Oakland. From 5 p.m. till midnight Friday volunteers will collect donations of non-perishable foods for local charities, which are experiencing increasing requests for their services this year.

Photographs by Thomas Demand, who exhibited in the 1999-2000 Carnegie International, accompany the Nov. 9 New York Times Magazine cover story "After the Imperial Presidency." What appears to be the Oval Office is actually Demand's life-sized set constructed of cardboard and paper that was destroyed after it was photographed. The Carnegie owns two works by Demand produced through his exacting process which addresses notions such as reality and perception, "Fenster (Window)" of 1998 and "Copyshop" of 1999.