BETH YARNELLE EDWARDS takes portraits of middle-class suburbanites in the midst of their everyday activities. In Laurel, Age 17, one of her contributions to James Nicholson Gallery's group show "Dislocation: New Bay Area Photography," the result is fairly banal. Parents watch with a combination of adoration and skepticism as their son plays guitar and their daughter demonstrates her cheerleading routine. But in others, Edwards succeeds in capturing the psychological tensions that fill these sterile suburban settings, and the complex personal experiences of middle-class women in particular. In Barbara, Age 44, a woman stands fully dressed in the predawn light with a piece of paper in one hand and a briefcase in the other. She is a professional preparing to leave her house, who has paused in the stillness of the early morning to momentarily reflect on her relationship with her still-sleeping husband. Is it sadness that she feels because her work takes her away from him, disappointment that provokes her to consider leaving him altogether, or something in between? In Lorraine, Age 73, a woman with dyed red hair sits alone on one of two twin beds with her eyes contemplatively turned toward the other. She seems to be a widow quietly mourning her departed husband; but her left hand is conspicuously missing a wedding ring, perhaps suggesting that she's a spinster or a divorcée. In her loneliness she appears to be reflecting on the passage of her life, and specifically her romantic life. In another picture, Kati, Age 59, the everyday gives way to the surreal. A woman wearing a gas mask sits knitting on a couch in a room where all the windows and furniture have been covered in plastic. Only the feet and legs of a man lying on the floor stick out from the margin of the picture. Is this a crime scene? Is she living with her husband's rotting corpse? Is it the scene of a disaster, and if so, why is she so calm? Or is this a hysterical delusion in which the oppressive sterility of middle-class life has irrupted in a violent caricature of itself? "Dislocation" also includes photographs by Angela Buenning, Maizie Gilbert, and Katherine Westerhout. Tues.-Fri., 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.-5 p.m., 49 Geary, fourth floor, S.F. (415) 397-0100, www.nicholsongallery.com. (Clark Buckner)