Melancholia doesn’t shout—it lingers. These images carry the weight of silence, like a breath held too long.

Stillness is not the same as peace. In his series Melancholia, Burak Bulut Yıldırım looks closely at a feeling that’s hard to name—a quiet, heavy stillness where nothing seems to move forward. This isn’t the loud pain of a dramatic event. It is a gentle, persistent ache found in the most private moments: alone in a bedroom, lost in thought by a window, or waking up to a soft, gray morning. Yıldırım’s camera doesn’t look for spectacle; it finds the deep feeling hidden in these quiet, in-between moments of life.

The photographs are set in simple, everyday spaces. We see figures against plain walls, near windows veiled by sheer curtains, or resting in the anonymous comfort of a bedroom. The people in these images are not posing for the camera. Instead, they are turned inward, their eyes looking down or away. They seem to exist for themselves, not for an audience. This creates a powerful sense of honesty. We feel less like we are looking at a picture and more like we are quietly sharing a room with another person.

The light is often pale and the colors are soft, stripping away distraction and focusing us on the internal mood of the scene. Each photograph feels like a half-remembered dream or a question you forgot to ask. If these images feel familiar, it’s because they connect to a long tradition of art about solitude. They bring to mind the lonely figures in Edward Hopper’s city paintings and share the thoughtful beauty of Rinko Kawauchi’s photographs of daily life. They are not simply sad pictures; they are about being full of a feeling that is held, suspended in time, waiting for what comes next.

Look closer at the small gestures. A hand grips a coffee cup as if it’s the only solid thing in the world. A body is curled up in bed, protected from a day that hasn’t yet begun. These small poses feel both light and incredibly heavy. Yıldırım has been making images like these for more than two decades, studying this specific state of being. He makes a clear distinction: this feeling of melancholia is not the same as depression. It is a necessary pause, a moment to stop before moving again. In that quiet, something beautiful can be seen—a flicker of self-awareness, a quiet strength. It’s a reminder that even in stillness, there is life.

These limited edition prints capture a delicate and honest part of the human experience. They are portraits of the complex feelings we have when we are simply with ourselves, showing the quiet beauty of a life lived between the bright spots and the shadows.