Twilight: Photographs by Gregory Crewdson

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In this article, we will provide an introduction to the career and photography style of one of the most important fine-art photographers today. It gave me an inkling of the power of pictures,” he recalled of the visit to American Photo. “But I didn’t start taking pictures until I was in college. I had a crush on a girl who was photo major, and followed her into a photography class. My Photo 1 teacher was Laurie Simmons, and my crush went from the girl to my teacher. As soon as I took my first pictures, my crush shifted from the teacher to photography.” The difference between Crewdson and other photographers is that he directs his vision/or concept and hires technicians to help serve that vision. He has also published photo books. These include Hover: Artspace Books, 1995; Twilight: Photographs by Gregory Crewdson, 2003; Beneath the Roses, 2008; Sanctuary, 2010; In a Lonely Place, 2011; and etc.

Crewdson’s photographs take place in quotidian environments where domestic occurrences and other everyday events are played out for the camera. These narratives occur at twilight, the magic hour where ordinary routines can undergo enigmatic transformations. This collision between the normal and the paranormal produce a tension that serves to transform the topology of the suburban landscape into a place of wonder and anxiety. In a career that spans more than three decades, Crewdson has produced several widely acclaimed bodies of work including Natural Wonder (1997), Twilight (2002),and Dream House (2008).

Events

These pictures are a meditation on brokenness, a search, a longing, and a yearning for meaning and transcendence. The figures are surrounded by vast decaying industrial landscapes and the impinging nature ― and there’s a certain underlying suggestion of anxiety. But I hope in the end the theme of nature persisting, and of figures seeking out light, offers hope for renewal, even redemption. Gregory Crewdson: Disturbed Nature, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr Institute of Art Design, Vancouver, Canada (solo) When I was 10, my father brought me to a Diane Arbus exhibition. He was a psychoanalyst and those pictures have a certain psychological quality, so somehow I made a connection between what he did as a job and Arbus looking for secrets. It wasn’t like I decided I was going to be a photographer exactly then. But that was the first time I understood the power of photographs and so I probably filed that away somewhere as a defining memory. Additionally, Crewdson also referenced Edward Hopper and the photographic style of Diane Arbus who had a great impact on the development of his style.

Although Crewdson has described himself as an ‘an American realist landscape photographer’, he makes filmic images that strongly reference TV programmes such as The Twilight Zone or films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind that deal with fantasy and the paranormal. In this series of intensely, almost luridly coloured and exuberantly detailed images, Crewdson employs a cinematic, directorial mode of photography, the culmination of weeks of planning and complicated, behind-the-scenes production. Deeply influenced by film and literature, Gregory Crewdson is currently one of the most technically meticulous and surreal Contemporary photographers of the recent decade whose works have left an indelible mark on the world of photography. Crewdson was born in 1962 in Brooklyn, New York City, where he schooled at John Dewey High School. Gregory Crewdson saw his early career in music after he joined a band called The Speedies, who released their hit song Let Me Take Your Photo in 1979.Crewdson works very closely with his DP, Director of Photography and only uses continuous lights on his projects. These books will present some of his works in high-quality images and provide insightful comments and biographical information. Twilight series. Begun in 1998 and completed in 2002, Twilight consists of forty photographs created as elaborately staged, large-scale tableaux that explore the relationship between the domestic and the fantastical, between the North American landscape and the topology of the imagination. In 1992, Gregory Crewdson held his solo exhibition at the Houston Center for Photography and in 1997 at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. In 1998, he exhibited at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and appeared in numerous group shows throughout the 1990s and 2000s. What I am interested in is that moment of transcendence, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.

The series takes its title from an entomological term. Moths use transverse orientation to fly at a constant angle relative to a distant light source, such as the moon; exposure to artificial light confuses the insects’ internal navigation, changing their behavior and destination. Crewdson anchors his photographic figures in relation to a source of light: a street lamp or traffic light, or the hesitant, transitional illumination of twilight. In each image, the viewer is positioned above in a semi bird’s-eye vantage point.I’ve always been interested in the commonplace, in finding a sense of beauty and mystery in everyday life,” Crewdson told American Photo magazine in 2014. “I’ve always been interested in the psychological nature of pictures, in trying to explain my own fear, and anxiety, and desire in photographs. The pictures are my means of trying to find meaning in the world.” Post-Historical Narrative in Contemporary Photography, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, USA Crewdson’s working method is often compared to a movie director, but instead of telling a story in 130,000 frames, he condenses the story into a single frame. Gregory Crewdson’s art can best be described as spooky and unnerving. Often featuring inexplicable and disturbing events, his photographs closely resemble images that you would see in a paranormal feature film. Operating on a grand scale, Gregory relies on help from a large crew to shoot his staged scenes. The photographs are then edited during post-production. Onset with the Crewdson crew Gregory Crewdson – Untitled (Penitent Daughter) from Twilight, 2001-2002 Crewdson’s style Behind Closed Doors, Collectors Celebrate The Museum's Golden Anniversary, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, USA

A Thousand Hounds. A Walk with the Dogs Through the History of Photography, UBS PaineWebber Art Gallery, New York, USA Lot’s of genres of photography try to tell stories through their photos. It’s what documentary photography, photojournalism and travel photography is all about. Crewdson’s work is also based on telling stories but on a whole different level. Bigger, wider and deeper. The care for details, perfect lighting, actors... I could stare at his photographs for hours and make up story after story—and that’s where the difference with those other genres lies.According to an interview with Crewdson, the role of the viewer and the projected narrative that they introduce to an image when viewing his obscure compositions is important to the interpretation of the image. Contemporary Photography and the Garden - Deceits and Fantasies, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, USA 2006 The Magic Hour of Twilight, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England During this time, Crewdson worked at Aperture magazine and also did an internship at the Daniel Wolf Gallery in Manhattan. This eerie and disturbing image features all ordinary subjects and objects, however, unsettles the viewer through its depiction of a fictional realm. Like many of Crewdson’s photographs, meaning is elusive and one can only find more questions than answers. New York, New York: Fifty Years of Art, Architecture, Photography, Film and Video, Grimaldi Forum, Monaco