Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson is a photographer who uses his medium in order to create incredibly cinematic images. His work, like my own, often distorts the line between reality and fiction. This is why I decided to look at his work, because it reflects the same motive of not having a clear distinction between the real and the make-believe. He creates scenes, like I do (but on a much much smaller scale) in order to put this across. Looking at this work allows me to see how my work could progress in the future, expanding to a more widespread operation, and to also get inspiration from the way that he uses light, and referencing paintings and other key cultural works in order to create something new.

The images are very staged, with every inch of them well thought out and even using whole crews and sets to paint the street just how he wants it to be seen. The aspect of reality comes from the fact that he uses everyday scenes, and while ambiguous in nature, they feel familiar to us because of the streets and houses. Even to a British audience, we have that sense of familiarity because of what we see from the cinema. “My pictures are about a search for a moment—a perfect moment,” Crewdson said. Seeing himself more as a storyteller than a photographer, he aims to leave the audience in wonder and questioning the scene. He doesn't give too much away about the circumstances of the images, leaving that mystery to be unfolded by the viewer. He does this by giving an audience a full scene, as a cinematic frame would. There are no close-ups or intimate eye contact, instead the viewer is placed at a distance from the happenings of the scene, and look upon it like a fly on the wall.

His style of work can be linked back to the french term 'tableau vivant' - meaning 'living picture'. Such pictures often used theatrical lighting, costume, sets, and well thought out poses. This can be depicted in a variety of mediums, from photography, to painting and sculpture, to stage performances. The entire drama of a story is depicted in one image.

According to the Gagosian gallery, the gallery which represents Crewdson, "In "Beneath the Roses," anonymous townscapes, forest clearings and broad, desolate streets are revealed as sites of mystery and wonder; similarly, ostensibly banal interiors become the staging grounds for strange human scenarios."

The images create a sense of both the familiar and the unknown. 

Crewdson uses light to his advantage, which can be seen in this image. He uses strategic lighting setups and post-production techniques in order to give the subjects an order of importance within the frame. The woman who is pregnant is lit most, and so she is given the most important role. The woman next to the pool is second, she is lit by the harsh rays of light, but she is outside the pregnant woman's space - the paddling pool. It is as if she is supporting the first woman, but also has importance because the light beams upon her from the heavens. The boy to the side, either napping or playing with his toys is almost cast away. He is not highlighted by the intense, cinematic lighting, but his body creeps into the shadows of the tree. 

The lighting and framing used is not that dissimilar to 15th-century tableaus. Here we have a painting depicting the Virgin Mary who is comfortable in her own space, an angel who is telling her of her pregnancy who is on the boundaries of Mary's space, and cast-offs to the left.

The light, perhaps more obviously in Crewdon's photograph, creates spaces, areas, bubbles or whatever other terminology that may fit, within the image. 

The mystery within these images, I believe, is emphasised by the incredible amount of planning that goes into these images. Crewdson composes the images in order to create this feeling of the unknown, everything is done for a reason. Photography is often seen as a fast-medium, especially when compared to painting - which it often is. These images contradict this common thinking, as each image can take months to plan and hundreds of crew members to even make happen. The amount of work that goes into this, just to create one moment. We never see what came before, nor what will come after. The narrative is condensed into a single frame. A film, on the other hand, will have more than one frame to explain the narrative to an audience. The result of using just the singular frame is that it poses many questions, and perhaps answers only a few of them, leaving the rest for the audience to ponder on.

The location of each image is important, often nodding to the American suburban life and offering a sense of familiarity turned mysterious. However, I think that what is more interesting to me is the sense of nostalgia. As somebody from the UK I may not feel this as intensely as somebody from America, but the way the images are taken and what is shown feels out of date almost. The images are not visually contemporary, there are no mobile phones, tablets or laptops. It certainly has a sense of nostalgia and a longing for what once was. I find it interesting that myself as a young viewer who doesn't remember those times can still identify that sense of nostalgia, perhaps in a way that is similar to the nostalgia in my own images - a longing for what once was, but a longing for a time I do not even know. It has a sense of the unknown, and even a dark escapism. 
Crewdson has said that he wants the images to feel outside of time, yet ordinary and familiar. He doesn't try to refer to a particular time period, but instead feel non-descript.  Ordinary, yet aged, but with no exact placement of time. I think that this helps the images feel as if they are stagnant almost, as if they've been that way for decades and have just remained in the same stance and situations for such a long period of time. It could be a vague reference of his childhood - which is why it is removed from a true nostalgia for me. 

His aim is to create something beautiful from a narrative of ordinary life - a tension is formed between the beauty of the image and the vague, normalcy of the situations. I think this tension can make an audience feel uncomfortable with the images.

While my images may seem extremely far removed from Crewdson's, I think certain aspects are important to note. Firstly, the artist says that at their core, these images are about finding the light, hope and the sense of possibility in life.

My images are about me trying to find these things through turning myself into somebody else, but the images also aim to give that feeling of escapism to an audience. A small amount of goodness and hope in a world that I find so dark. The dark world isn't necessarily depicted in my images, but I think that's because it is all around me, removed from imagery. If Crewdson were to depict the same, I think the camera and my setup would also be in frame, and around me would be the darkness. It's as if I'm showing one aspect of it, whereas Crewdson would show the whole tableau. 

My project is undoubtedly different from Crewdson, but I find it very interesting how he creates such brilliant sets. Mine is much more low budget and less precise but regardless, they both set up a scene that aims to depict something beautiful. I think I would absolutely love for the sets for my images to be as surreal and extreme as Crewdson's. To have the time and the money would allow me to have greater accuracy, and I'd love to be able to work as he does, even if it's on a much smaller scale.

Crewdson takes more of a role of director for the scenes rather than photographer. He admits he has no attachment to the camera, and his job is to tell stories and photographs happen to be the medium in which this happens. He often doesn't even press the button. This could be seen as a less person encounter, but I don't think this is necessarily the case. I have had my partner take my images after I have set up the lighting and the framing and the props exactly how I want it, and the images still feel very personal to me. This may be because mine are self-portraits, but I also thinking that Crewdson's images have some sort of psychoanalytic value to them that do make them personal. On the other hand, I do also think that I have an intimate relationship with the camera as I show myself in vulnerable positions and places, where it is just me and the camera, or me, my partner and the camera. The experience of actually taking the image is very intimate and personal which I don't think Crewdson's images have on this subdued level - despite the resulting image feeling intimate to the viewer.

Another interesting point is that his images that are on location rather than a sound stage are all taken around where he lives, and then absolutely dramatised to create a place that is personal not only to him, but to most Western viewers, as they can recognise the iconography. My images are also all taken locally, but this is not made obvious. The location, while obviously important because I use painting as influence, can be ambiguous to the viewer. It can be wherever the viewer needs it to be. 

Overall, I think it's really interesting to understand how my images could be taken on a bigger, more expansive level. My images are obviously not to this scale of production, and yet there are similarities between the work created. The images have a sense of distortion from our own world, much as my own do. They both intertwine reality with something that feels removed from what we know.