Speaking to the allure of the unknown, David Lynch once said, “secrets and mysteries provide a beautiful little corridor where you can float out and many, many wonderful things can happen.” Yes, it’s that delicious mix of fear and desire, those beautiful facades teeming with anxiety, that both passionately attract us and leave our blood running cold. And if you’ve ever seen even one of Gregory Crewdson’s photographs, it’s evident that his pictures possess a mystifying beauty that haunts. Fueled by his own obsession with what’s lurking “beneath the roses,” Crewdson takes on small-town life with grand expansion. He doesn’t simply take a photograph, rather he creates an entire world with the complexity of movie-like images that transport you to a place that’s both “wonderful and strange.” Lush with light and color, his pictures are shot through the haze of magic hour, a time when the world takes on a wondrous and fantastic glow, showing us a moment in time where the ever-looming sense of isolation and alienation in everyday life is always present.

A Place Both Wonderful and Strange: A Conversation with Gregory Crewdson and Ben Shapiro