Gregory Crewdson (b. 1962)

Gregory Crewdson is a photographer who operates with strong directorial control in his image making. His photographs function like film stills to the point where there is arguably not much ‘reality’ left in the scene.

Do some research into Crewdson’s work and in your learning log or blog reflect on how his work relates to film and/or art

An American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. Working with large production teams to scout and shoot his images, his photographs have become increasingly complex as if it were for a motion picture production, including its painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast, as seen in his seminal series Beneath the Roses (2003–2008) and Twilight (1998–2001). “My pictures are about a search for a moment—a perfect moment,” Crewdson has explained.

Taken from an interview with The Guardian in 2016: “One great thing about photography is that it kind of hovers between everything. It’s really easy to reach out to other mediums and have connections between things,” says Crewdson. “I have images in my head,” he says. “The only way I know how to make them into pictures is this one. I’m sure there’s easier ways to do it … I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone else.” He laughs. “There is this paradox, where I depend on this large group to create pictures that feel specifically mine.”

Crewdson turned to photography initially as a hobby, but his early work earned him a place at Yale. He cites Joel Sternfeld as an influence and tells says that, as a student, he took an internship at his New York gallery just so that he could meet him. At Yale, he discovered the work of such conceptualists as Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman, taking their staging and visual choreography as the starting point for his more cinematic constructions and this is clearly seen throughout his images.

“I always loved movies and the look of movies,” Crewdson explains to American Photo. “I’m also a huge student of movies—but could never make one. Working in a linear fashion is foreign to me. I was always interested in using aspects of film production towards a single image—the relationship between movie making and still photography—and blurring the lines between the two. I’m fascinated with telling a story in a single image rather than through time.”

“David Lynch’s Blue Velvet […] would be the movie that defined me as I was coming of age. I encountered it when I was a graduate student at Yale. I remember feeling deeply connected to how it used the American vernacular, and revealed something more dark and sinister underneath it. I was also completely connected to the way it looked: the use of light and darkness. I’m not saying it’s the best movie ever made, but the one that defined me the most.”

I found the following interview an interesting insight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jLtNwPB9eY

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