By SARA ROSE
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Known and respected as a documentary photographer, Catherine Opie catches the people and moments we all might miss as we race through our lives — an empty highway, a lesbian couple, street corner shrines, a lone surfer.

For the first time, selections of her major works are together in a mid-career show, "Catherine Opie: An American Photographer," that opened Friday at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Opie is perhaps best known for her formal color-saturated portraits. These pieces brilliantly use classic portraiture form for contemporary subjects. Transgender, pierced, scarred, bleeding, cross-dressing subjects confront the viewer with defiant, curious, confident, sometimes plaintive attitudes. The classic meets the "fringe" and the two marry to create a rare, confrontational beauty.

According to Opie, "If you are going to make color photographs, then play with color," and she certainly does.

Set against rich backgrounds of greens, blues and yellows, her subjects pop out with velvety skin, gleaming body jewelry and vivid tattoos. The serious "Frankie" (1995) is a stunning contrast of colors as is the playful "Jerome Caja" (1993) with granny glasses, red feathered shoes and prom dress against a lush green.

While Opie acknowledges that she is most interested in portraits of people, in "what a portrait does," her landscapes are hugely affecting. Because she is strident in her formal set up of her photos, her landscapes — whether empty Los Angles freeways, Beverly Hills gated mansions or deserted mini-malls — read as portraits.

Stripped of people, Opie's series "Untitled (Freeways)" (1994) and "Untitled (Mini-Malls)" (1997) distill down to the essence of the subject. Like her portraits, she is examining how the exterior form — the look of the thing — fits into our world.