“The culture there is something new and strange and interesting and lovely,” the photographer Christopher Rauschenberg said of Thailand, the subject of his new exhibition at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in SoHo. He was speaking Wednesday night at the show’s opening. “I loved being able to photograph the mixture of new and ancient,” Mr. Rauschenberg said.

The show includes expansive views of the country’s architecture, often pieced together in collage form, as well as close-up views of everyday life. Mr. Rauschenberg took the photographs in January, just weeks after the tsunamis hit, though his trip had been planned months before.

“My wife wanted to go somewhere warm, and I had never been to Thailand before,” Mr. Rauschenberg, a resident of Portland, Ore., said. Mr. Rauschenberg, son of the artists Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, started taking photographs when he was 6, with a camera his mother gave him.

“We took photo walks around the city,” Ms. Weil said at the opening. “When Chris was 7, he published his first book, ‘Abstract Photography by Chris R.’ He developed all his own prints. When he was little, he was always taking pictures.”

The budding photographer went on to the Dalton School, where his passion became physics. He started college intending to become a scientist, but after his first semester, he decided to major in photography. He has had 71 solo exhibits in America, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Yugoslavia.

He also supports other photographers through the Blue Sky Gallery, which he helped found in 1975.

“In 30 years, we’ve had 600 exhibits of 500 artists,” Mr. Rauschenberg said.

His next stop after the opening: Sante Fe, where he is reviewing portfolios at a photography conference.

Guests at the opening instantly warmed to the work.

“I’m interested in Thailand, and some of the photographs give a view that you don’t usually see, a more personal view,” one visitor, Annabel Brodie, said.

Another, Jeni Liang, noted the irony of a photograph of a Thai shoestore, which showed customers’ shoes placed outside.

For some the photographs provoked nostalgia. “They’ve unleashed a chain of memories,” one guest, Mohita Sinha, said. “We want to go back,” her friend Aarti Jain said longingly. The two visited Thailand last year.

Among those sipping white wine in the gallery were the painters Joan Vennum and Nathan Joseph; the photographer John Van Praag, whose studio is in Long Island City; the actress and writer Jannie Wolff; a guide at the American Museum of Natural History, Roberta Burkan; the editor of the newspaper Education Update, Pola Rosen; the captain of the historic ship the Klang, Richard Hayman; the industrial designer Rafael Ramirez, who designed the lighting for the Museum of Modern Art, and Spaniards Pepe Maza and Nacho Bas, who are working at a bank in Manhattan this summer. Christina Papanikolas came to the opening with a friend, Cynthia Tsai, whom she met when Ms. Tsai sublet Ms. Papanikolas’s apartment in Paris.

Also in attendance, just hours before the terrorist attack in London, was New York City’s police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, with his wife, Veronica. His presence comforted at least one guest, who noted that the work on display must be deemed safe.

The Sundaram Tagore Gallery, founded in 2000 by Sundaram Tagore, focuses on work that explores the relationship between Western and non-Western cultures. It is currently enjoying some fame as a location for several scenes in the recently released film “Heights.”

Christopher Rauschenberg’s photographs will be on display through July 24.