I Shall Sing These Songs Beautifully is the first major photobook by filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, known for his singular cinematic worlds and stark visual language. In this body of photographs, Lanthimos translates the quiet tension and surreal logic of his films into still images.

Shot largely on film and composed with a deliberate sense of ambiguity, the photographs depict figures placed within sparse interiors, empty landscapes, and strangely staged situations. The scenes feel at once familiar and unsettling: gestures are suspended, narratives remain unresolved, and small details hint at something just outside the frame.

Rather than explaining themselves, the images invite viewers to sit with uncertainty. Much like Lanthimos’s films, the photographs operate through atmosphere, restraint, and a subtle sense of absurdity. Bodies become sculptural elements within the frame, and everyday spaces take on a quietly theatrical quality.

The result is a photobook that feels cinematic yet deeply photographic — a sequence of images that suggest stories without fully revealing them.

Artist: Yorgos Lanthimos

Publisher: MACK

Format: Hardcover

Dimensions: approx. 9.5 × 12 inches (24 × 30 cm)

Page Count: 152 pages

Printing: Offset printed, full-color reproductions

Binding: Iridescent Casebound

Language: English

Release Year: 2024

Edition: First edition photobook

Some photobooks feel like documents.

This one feels like a pause.

Yorgos Lanthimos approaches photography the same way he approaches cinema — through restraint, odd gestures, and scenes that never quite resolve themselves. The photographs sit in a space between narrative and abstraction. You feel like something just happened, or is about to.

What stands out is the simplicity of the setups. A figure, a room, a stretch of landscape. But within that simplicity, the compositions hold a strange tension — bodies positioned just slightly off, expressions unreadable, moments that feel rehearsed but also accidental.

For photographers, it’s a reminder that atmosphere can carry an image further than explanation. Sometimes the most interesting photographs are the ones that leave a little room for discomfort.