Untitled, Winter 2006 by Gregory Crewdson

One of my most vivid memories from my first few months in New York is standing in front of Gregory Crewdson's Twilight series at the Guggenheim and finding bits and pieces of myself in the photographs; despite being too perfectly staged, set in places I'd never go and featuring no one who looks anything like me, there was something so primal about the loneliness and longing in all the unerringly lit scenes that spoke to the part of me terrified I wasn't going to make any friends or get anywhere in the city. It's such a strange, painful thing to remember, and I guess it's why I have such a love/hate relationship with his work—I appreciate the beauty of the photographs and I enjoy the exercise of making elaborate stories in my head around the moment they present, but they always leave me so cold inside.

Having said all of that, I'm excited to see Crewdson's new show at Luhring Augustine here in NYC, Beneath the Roses, which opened this past week and runs through May 3rd. Amy Larocca talked to Crewdson about his process and approach for New York Magazine recently; the most interesting thing to me in the piece is finding out that someone who creates photographs with such a cinematic feel—using about the same manpower as a film crew to make his work, even— has zero desire to ever direct a movie himself. He says, "I think in terms of single images. My work is profoundly connected to that tradition. I really don’t know what happens before or after an image. I really have no clue."