Gregory Crewdson

Crewdson stages his photographs with lighting, sets, actors, and production crews more like a film shoot than a street photograph. Beneath the Roses, made from 2003 to 2008, is famous for suburban scenes that feel suspended between realism and mystery.

No. Beneath the Roses uses real-looking American streets and interiors, but the scenes are staged. Crewdson's work is closer to cinematic tableau photography than to documentary photography.

Crewdson has taught photography at Yale University, and his work is often discussed in art-school contexts because of its large-scale production methods. His pictures also connect to American cinematic influences such as small-town noir and domestic melodrama.

Compare Twilight, Beneath the Roses, and Cathedral of the Pines. Twilight and Beneath the Roses lean into theatrical suburban unease, while Cathedral of the Pines is quieter and was made around rural Massachusetts.