Beneath the Roses is the first book published about Crewdson's large-scale photographic series of the same name. In this body of work, Crewdson expanded his production scale to rival feature films, moving beyond domestic interiors to capture entire town streets, forests, and abandoned industrial sites across unnamed small towns. Utilizing massive crews, street closures, and complex cinematic lighting rigs, the photographs depict moments of deep isolation, melancholy, and quiet disconnection. The subjects are frequently frozen in emotionally charged, ambiguous moments, capturing a visually breathtaking "calm before the storm" where epic municipal scale meets intimate human fragility.

Unlike in his previous series Dream House, Crewdson deliberately cast local actors, non-professionals, or lesser-known regional talent rather than famous faces. He relies on rigorous casting calls in the towns where he shoots (such as rural communities in upstate New York or Vermont) to find subjects whose look and anonymous, everyday quality fit the desolate, psychological mood of his fictional tableaux. The goal is to maintain an uncanny sense of realism and alienation, where the figures feel like ordinary people trapped in inexplicable, suspended moments of personal isolation.