In James Mai's panoramic shot of the Taj Mahal, the Indian landmark is shown from the rear.

He was atypically close to a wall when he photographed, making the building seem taller than in most shots and de-emphasizing the dome of the great mausoleum in Agra.

Photographs typically depict the Taj Mahal from the front, at a distance.

Mai is giving a lesson in his selection of photos. He wants to demonstrate that the architects intended a visual experience that changes with the changing light and a person's position.

The Taj Mahal, he says, "encourages you to move through it and stop at certain points and look again at the architecture in order to reveal a new face, a new characteristic."

It is, he says, as if the building itself has life.

Mai, pronounced "my," examines sacred buildings of multiple religions in an ongoing exhibit titled "A Place For Everything: Panoramic Photographs of Cosmic Architectures and Sacred Precincts." The show runs through July 19 at McLean County Arts Center in downtown Bloomington.

The centerpiece photo for the exhibit is from a Hindu temple in Khajuraho, India. Mai deliberately used a frame in which a woman visitor at the site snapped his photograph as he took his photographs. This frame is talking back to us just as the architects of sacred landmarks continue to speak.

An art professor for Illinois State University, Mai teaches in his exhibit that sacred architecture presents microcosms - miniaturized visions of the world, underworlds, upperworlds and afterworlds.

They are positioned with regard to landscape and in a context.

The reason for the location of Stonehenge in England's countryside remains a mystery, but Mai states that obviously that exact site meant something, because the stones for it were hauled for miles. Its alignment of stones matches the changes of the sun's position.

Some sacred sites are positioned for cardinal directions - east, west, north, south - some are sited for lunar and solar alignments and some use a combination.

Ancient sacred sites relate to God and deities but also astronomy, agriculture, water supply - all of life, says Mai. They are both observatory and church and they act as guidebook - places where in ancient days and today families can study carvings to learn about God, faith, values and life.

Their elaborate expanses change mood and mind as they summon worshipers into journeys and spiritual experience and shape their worldviews, he says.

Arts center Executive Director Doug Johnson values the exhibit in helping the public derive a deeper meaning from famous sites.

"In presenting the 'big picture,'" said Johnson, "we are able to contextualize these iconic settings as part of the world and not separate from it. That is an amazing feat."

The meaning of artwork may be harder to grasp in a Moslem mosque, because as Mai notes, Moslem teaching prohibits figurative representations. The emphasis in mosques is geometric patterns.

Mai, who also is an abstract painter, may be wired for a special appreciation.

"These are not just decorations," he said at a recent talk at the arts center. "These are manifestations of the sacred as it exists in the world, at all levels - from the smallest small to the largest large."

He teaches that Islamic mathematics are both logical and mystical.

A Jain temple in India provides Mai's most literal, pure example of the temple as a microcosm. The interior courtyard is what amounts to a massive sculpture explaining the faith, and Jain writings are attached to the walls of the courtyard.

With perhaps similar intent, Teotihuacan builders north of modern-day Mexico City created a microcosm. The shape of the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun mimic the landscape behind them and the two are joined by the Street of the Dead. The alignment put the pyramids and street in a straight line from the setting sun on Aug. 13. That was the day of creation celebrated in Teotihuacan.

Mai's approach to his subjects is one of academia and art.

The edges of the photos in all but one piece are jagged, showing that several frames have been digitally merged. His objective is to convey experience of visiting.

His arch-shaped image of Salisbury Cathedral shows ground level to the ceiling, then along the ribbed ceiling and then back to the ground - as if the viewers are there craning their necks. The panorama of Jami Masjid, a Mosque in India, is a 360-degree view, as the observer turns in a circle to take in a vast courtyard.

Mai started his project in 2002 with a standard camera and slide film but then switched to high-end but basic point-and-shoot digital cameras. He never used a tripod and never sought to become a master of camera equipment.

He studies a sacred site before going to it and then examines the spot once there. When he decides on a viewpoint, he takes a series of photographs from a stationary spot. The image frames are merged into a single image on computer.

His project is ongoing, although it gained momentum with a 2007 trip to India during a teaching sabbatical, and the trip led to this, his first exhibit of the work.

He expresses no preference toward any site and no personal preference of religion. He said he sees value in all the religions, and he looks for the commonalities of their sacred landmarks rather than their differences.

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Sacred places

The spots listed below are photographed in James Mai's exhibit "A Place For Everything: Panoramic Photographs of Cosmic Architectures and Sacred Precincts." The exhibit runs through July 19 at the McLean County Arts Center, 601 N. East St., Bloomington. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday.

India

• Buddha Parinirvana - Buddhist site near Aurangabad

• Chaturbhuja Temple - Hindu site in Khajuraho

• Ellora Caves - Buddhist, Hindu and Jain temples carved into volcanic rock near Aurangabad

• Jambudvipa - Jain temple at Palitana

• Jami Masjid - Mosque at Agra

• Lakshmana Temple - Hindu temple in Khajuraho

• Mahabodhi Mahavihara - Place of Buddha's enlightenment, in Bodhgaya.

• Sanchi - Buddhist site said to contain remains of the Buddha, Madhya Pradesh region

• Sun Temple - Hindu temple in Modhera

• Taj Mahal - Muslim mausoleum in Agra

England

• Salisbury Cathedral - Christian site in Salisbury, England

• Stonehenge - Ancient site in English countryside

North America

• Big Horn Medicine Wheel - Stone arrangement by Native Americans near Sheridan, Wyoming

• Legend Rock - Ancient shaman stone carvings - petroglyphs - near Thermopolis, Wyoming

• Pueblo Bonito - Anasazi site at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

• Pueblo Pintado - A site near Chaco Canyon

Central America

• Tikal - Mayan pyramid site, Guatemala

• Teotihuacan - Remains, including pyramids, of a massive city north of Mexico City.