Annie Halliday, Translucent Exposures, Impressions Gallery of Photography, Castlegate, York

IMPRESSIONS' definition of photography has been known to be as loose as a Venus Williams sports bra at the Australian Open. Now the ever progressive York gallery has surpassed itself by presenting an exhibition by Annie Halliday that utilises neither camera nor lens.

Relax, the walls and floor are not bare, but rather than photographs - or Halliday snaps - they display photograms by this artist, environmental journalist and former water biologist.

First, the artist talking: "My work explores aspects of substances beyond the idea of surface, using transparency and light," says Annie. "I've returned to the technological origins of photography to re-examine the potential of the photogram, and to explore the relationship between light and light's absence, which informs our perception of the visual world."

Now, here's the science bit, as Jennifer Aniston would say. The photogram technique uses only light, an object and light-sensitive materials, such as ice, water and glass. In layman's terms, when Halliday takes photograms, images are recorded directly on to photographic paper of the light that refracts, reflects and filters through her chosen translucent objects, be it a bottle, a car window or a shower.

The photogrammic image is a negative. So think of an X-ray of a mouth full of fillings, or a broken leg with a metal plate. Then think again, because while X-rays are spookily spectral and skeletal, Halliday's photograms have a haunting beauty and mystery, sometimes as impenetrable and seductive as a Cocteau Twins album sleeve, other times as enchanting and fragile as a fairy at the bottom of the garden.

The science serves the art, and so everyday objects are revealed in a new light, pun intended. Take, for example, the photogram pictured below. Entitled Baroque, it is an image of an old jug, the light registering on the glassware's light-sensitive surface as a capillary of dark lines, spidery webs and fibrous shadows.

In this X-ray world, where nature is in reverse, there remains the photographic ability to capture forever an ephemeral presence, particularly in the box installation, In The Dark, where photograms of a woman's body are mounted on its three surfaces: you sense the body has just pressed against its surface, left an impression and moved on.

There is a playful element too, whether in the Milkround title for the circular-shaped photogram of milk bottles or the rear, front and side windows of a car, arranged in assembly line order.

Who knew that such strange magic awaited release inside glass, like a Genie's bottle!