Gregory Crewdson - I'm not sure

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled from the series 'Twilight', 2001, © Gregory Crewdson

As part of the MA course I am taking I am examining the work of Crewdson.  In many ways his work is fascinating - the use of high production value cinematography techniques to produce ambiguous images is challenging and at the same thought provoking.   The images are almost a dreamlike world, perhaps a nightmare of frozen moments taken out of their normal reality and placed before you for you to dissect.   This, of course, is where my problems start with Crewdson.  Firstly, there is his method of production.  He does not actually take the photograph but rather directs the whole process.    This leads to the question - is he a photographer?   I am still grappling with that one and have no firm answer yet.   If he was producing a movie then he would be a director/producer but not the cinematographer.  Does this mean he cannot be the photographer?   I do wish I had answer to that.  Still this is the beauty of thinking about images and trying to work out what they say to you.

The second point which really is the more important of the two points is this - do I like the photographs?   At one level it is hard not to admire the images produced.   They are works of great craft and precision.   They are produced by a whole team of technicians coming together in way that is a marvel of organisation and creative endeavor.   But this is also where the images, for me, tend to die.   They are beautiful in their creation but remain too much of a pastiche of other works.  Perhaps the best way is to compare Crewdson's work with Edward Hopper, a painter he openly admits as one of his main inspirations.  Hopper's world is a dark and less well defined one when compared to Crewdson's clinical preparation.  The mood of Hopper's work is ambiguous in a way that Crewdson's is blatant.   Perhaps this is the difference between a painting and a photograph.  A photograph always implies a clinical record of events, even as in the case of Crewdson, the events are a pure fantasy - the product of the marvelous control he has over the creative process.   The photograph always implies it records the truth.  After all ' the camera never lies'.   Any photographer knows that this is not true and the only truth that a camera records is that that photographer wishes it to do, no more no less.

I guess the only way to end this ramble is to say that I am still not sure about Crewdson.   However, the journey to find out is what the course is all about.   Here endth the rant.