it was recommended to me early on by a local gallery director to expand my visual vocabulary - to look at other art forms and expose myself to photographers outside the landscape genre. for this series, i’ll be concentrating primarily on photographers, although i may occasionally mix in a painter, illustrator or other artist. one of the photographers i stumbled across and have absolutely fallen in love with is Gregory Crewdson. he is a storyteller through and through and his attention to detail to help tell his story is at a level beyond 99.9 percent of the world.
first of all, he is a film photographer, shooting large format film, so his images have a tremendous amount of detail. his most prominent work was photographed in suburban or small-town new england. the emotion he’s able to evoke in these images is amazing, but what’s truly wonderful is the multiple facets of stories that can be deduced from the images. while i highly recommend purchasing or at least spending some quality time with his photo books: Cathedral of the Pines and Beneath the Roses are two of my favorites, i even more highly recommend watching the documentary about him while shooting Beneath the Roses. the documentary is titled Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters directed by Ben Shapiro. the reason the documentary is so interesting to me is not only do we get to see the scenes he photographed, but more importantly the process of how the scenes were set up. the intense planning, the set creation, casting for subjects, waiting for the natural light, the decision to move a glass on the counter over a couple of inches. he knows exactly the story to be told and how he needs to photograph it, and no detail is spared. his depictions of small-town, suburban life show both the monotony of life for many in these scenes, but also show a humanness that’s so often lost. if one could take a feature-length movie and compact it down to a single photograph without losing any meaning, Gregory Crewdson is the one that could, and would pull it off.
some believe that exposure to others’ art opens us up to copy others, sometimes even subconsciously. i believe it shows other ways to express ourselves. i don’t photograph the same types of subjects, and i certainly don’t see the complexity of the scenes that Gregory Crewdson does, but his attention to detail to pull every bit of emotion out of the viewer has made a huge impact on me and my photography. his ability to tell a story is at a level matched by very few in the photography world. on top of it all, his work is hugely entertaining. if you’re looking for a photographer to research, a new book to pick up, or a movie to watch (it’s on either netflix or amazon prime) perhaps you’ll look in Gregory Crewdson’s direction, and hopefully be as moved as I have been.