Photography
Cinematic Photography as Seen Through the Lens of Gregory Crewdson
“Staged photography” (cinematic photography)
Crewdson's father was a psychoanalyst. As a child, he was fascinated by what was being said in the professional office of the family home in Brooklyn. His father would tell him that if he saw a patient he recognized on the street, he should pretend not to know them.
On a humorous note, as a teenager, he was part of a punk rock band called "The Speedies" active in New York City. Their song, "Let Me Take Your Photo," proved to be prophetic of Crewdson's career. In 2005, Hewlett Packard used the song in a commercial to promote its digital cameras.
He studied at various colleges in the New York area and completed a Master of Arts degree at Yale University, without having fully identified his interest in photography. In 1993, he obtained a teaching position at Yale University, which he has maintained to this day.
His first photographic project was carried out between 1992 and 1997. Entitled "Natural Wonder", it is a series of still life compositions with a macabre expression.
Artistic inspiration
Crewdson's cinematic style focuses on mastering detail in a created world. He depicts psychological dramas by exploring his own anxieties and desires.
All of his exterior cinematic images are captured at dusk, in order to balance natural lighting with multiple light sources to create the desired atmosphere.
He's not usually behind the camera. He prefers to stay in touch with his extras and the technical crew, which can number around a hundred people. His encounter with director of photography XX was significant in his ability to develop more complex images based on film production techniques.
“When I compose my images, I never think about what could have happened before or what could happen later,” says Crewsdon. It was a dyslexia problem that led him to photography: “I don’t think in linear terms, I think in terms of composition and images.”
A Crewsdon image can sell for up to $150,000. "My goal is to develop something fragile, mysterious, and beautiful."
The film "Brief Encounter"
In 2012, he was the subject of a documentary titled "Brief Encounter," produced by Ben Shapiro. This film describes the inspiration and production techniques for his work "Beneath the Roses." It explains his approach to artistic creation.
In the film, Crewdson recounts how, at the age of 10, a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Arts in New York, exhibiting the work of Diane Arbus, with his father, was a defining moment. It was at that moment that he first understood the psychological weight of an image, the sense of urgency and terror. He felt that his own worldview aligned with Arbus's, and this early encounter laid the foundation for his future vision as an artist.
Influence and inspiration: Staged Photography
A professor of photography at Yale University, Gregory Crewdson embodies the new generation of "staged photography" pioneered by artists such as Jeff Wall (1946 — _) (Canadian photographer) and James Casebere (1953 — ).
View images: Wall_Portfolio
View images: Casebere_Portfolio
His inspiration draws from the dark side of America, the anxiety, the ill-defined disquiet of well-oiled, domestic, small-town daily life.
The photographer works like a director, with sets designed entirely from storyboards, a full film crew (set designers, makeup artists, prop masters, etc.), and special effects worthy of science fiction films. However, according to him, only photography, unlike other narrative forms, communicates strong emotion while remaining silent.
Planning photographic scenes, by preparing storyboards
Crewdson finds inspiration in the works of filmmakers David Linch (Elephan Man, Blue Velvet – he claims this film changed his worldview – and others), Alfred Hitchcock, painter Edward Hopper and photographer Diane Arbus. Gregory Crewdson's universe plays with the codes of fantasy cinema, from Hitchcock to Lynch and Spielberg.
A parallel is often drawn between Crewdson's work and that of the painter Edward Hopper. However, the famous painter is able to create much more anticipation with much less cluttered scenes. Hopper's paintings are stripped down and retain only the essentials, which leaves more to the viewer's imagination. For example, his way of painting the sunlit wall in gradients tells us a lot about the passage of time, the futility of time, and loneliness.
In return, Crewdson overloads his scenes. If a woman doesn't seem sufficiently miserable in a bedroom, he adds a few antidepressant pills and diet pills to the nightstand to reinforce the idea of despair, in addition to adding an overflowing ashtray nearby. In America, you have to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that life can be difficult.
Narrative style
Crewdson's creative techniques are borrowed from the film industry. He uses actors, lighting designers, technical crews, makeup artists, and an art director to collaborate on the production. In the process, the main streets of several small towns in Vermont and Massachusetts were closed. He often built entire sets from scratch, with extreme attention to detail.
It is not only the mode of production and the complexity of his projects that give Crewdson's works a cinematic allure. His images give the impression of excerpts taken from a film sequence, transforming the film's story into a single, highly elaborate composite image. In his attempt to produce what he calls an “uncannily perfect image,” the artist considers the camera an invasive necessity. We are at the limit of photographic art, in the art of storytelling.
The lack of purpose or logic in the scenes is indicative of the artistic approach. The subjects in Crewdson's work avoid eye contact with the camera; they express misery, jealousy, anger, or bewildered astonishment. They stand motionless in the rain, wander aimlessly, get up at night to go into the woods for no reason. They are living a nightmare at home or in a hotel room.
The influence of typical American small towns and villages is easily recognizable; the scenes bring out the dark side that turns into a cinematic cliché. It is easy to understand that the characters are lost, misguided, or tormented.
It's impossible not to invent a story from a Crewdson image. What connects the subjects to a story is the abandoned main street, a puddle on the road, the damp, dark forest penetrated by a railway line, the anonymous suburb, a room with dim lights where things happen that we shouldn't see.
Post-Production
Post-production processing is essential for Crewdson's production. In addition to elaborate image processing, the use of composite image techniques is common. For each scene, he shoots approximately 40 images. From these images, the post-production team selects portions of the images to superimpose on the base image chosen for the final production. The shots are captured with a camera mounted on a tripod, which allows for the use of the composite image approach.
Chronology of major projects
Natural Wonder between 1992 and 1997
Set against the backdrop of suburbia or on a detailed set of American homes, interiors, or neighborhoods, Gregory Crewdson presents a haunting world, cinematic photographs of alienation and eerie stillness.
View images: Crewdson_Natural_Wonder
Hover Series, 1996 to 1997
In the Hover series, Crewdson turns to humans and explores their darker aspects. He abandons close-ups and uses wide angles. These black and white photographs offer a glimpse of a private backyard in which once-revisited disturbing acts occur: a man kneels over a woman who has collapsed and is inexplicably bound by party balloons; elsewhere, a man obsessively mows his lawn in ever-larger concentric circles.
View images: Crewdson_Hover
Twilight: 1998 to 2002
Twilight consists of forty photographs of complex staging, large-scale tableaux that explore the relationship between the interior and the fantastical universe, between the North American landscape and the topology of the imagination.
View images: Crewdson_Twilight
Dream House Exhibition, Oct 23 – Nov 22, 2003
Beneath the Roses, 2003 to 2008
“Beneath the Roses” is an exhibition of twenty new large-scale photographs. In these theatrical compositions of realistic panoramic images, Crewdson explores the recesses of the American psyche and the troubling dramas at play in everyday life.
View images: Crewdson_beneath_the_roses
Sanctuary, exhibition, 2011
It gives the impression of crossing a ghost town, emptied of its inhabitants. It is a documentation of the legendary Cinecittà studios, very close to Rome. Abandoned by the production teams, this monument of Italian cinema falls into ruin, taking with it all its legends. Crewdson's black and white work is very different from his other series but compares with his other universes: a city with an eerie atmosphere, no apparent action and a flood of questions about what this place has of real or imaginary, about what it was and what it will become, about the secrets it hides and about the identity of those who inhabited it.
View images: Crewdson_Sanctuary
Brief Encounter, 2012
The film “Brief Encounter” follows the renowned photographer on his more than 10-year creative journey to create a series of haunting and surreal portraits of a small American town. His photographs are referred to as single-frame films. Each composition overflows with narrative, in part because he utilizes cinematic special effects techniques, hundreds of lights, and enormous crews of technicians. We journey with him—from his initial inspiration, his creativity, and through countless logistical obstacles, to the moment when all the elements merge into a single, perfect moment. Despite their grand scale, Crewdson’s images are inspired by his most intimate dreams and fantasies.
Cathedral of the Pines, 2013 and 2014
With this series, produced between 2013 and 2014, Crewdson departs from his interest in strange suburban subjects and explores human relationships within several natural environments. In images inspired by 19th-century American and European painters, Crewdson captures figures from the small rural town of Becket, Massachusetts, and its vast surrounding forests, including the trail from which the series takes its title. Interior scenes laden with ambiguous narratives probe the tensions between human respect and separation, intimacy, and isolation.
View images: Crewdson_Cathedral_of_the_Pines
Influence
His work has had a great influence on a whole generation of younger artists combining film and photography. In 2006-2007, his work was the subject of a major traveling retrospective (DA2. Domus Artium 2002, Salamanca; Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden; Palazzo delle esposizioni, Rome; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland; Museen Haus Lange/ Haus Esters Krefeld, Krefeld, Germany; Fotomuseum Den Haag, Netherlands).
The television series "La petite vie" created from scratch by Claude Meunier and Serge Thériault can certainly be considered a significant contribution to the art of staged photography.
What considerations should be kept in mind when doing “staged” photography?
1. Étalonnage colorimétrique
Une composante technique à la définition des images est liée à l’importance de l’étalonnage colorimétrique. Une seule image peut être composée de multiples photographies, qui doivent avoir la même température de lumière. Ce contrôle s’effectue 1) par l’échantillonnage de la température de la lumière et la calibration des caméras pour chaque scène à l’autre, sous différents éclairages ou à différentes heures de la journée ou / et 2) en post-production en référence aux photos avec des cibles calibrées.
2. Équilibrage des sources lumineuses
En utilisant de nombreuses sources lumineuses pour éclairer une scène, l’intensité lumineuse de chaque source doit être en équilibre en fonction de l’ensemble de la scène. C’est ici qu’entre en jeu le posemètre. Il faut savoir différencier entre la lumière incidente (celle qui “tombe” sur le sujet indépendamment de sa réflexivité) et réfléchie (qui dépend de la réflexivité du sujet photographié). Ce sont 2 différentes mesures. De façon générale, pour une scène complexe, on choisi le mode de mesure réfléchie, en mode spot, qui permet d’isoler chaque source lumineuse.
3. Harmonie des couleurs
Voici un aspect de la photographie que l’on connait tous. Des couleurs complémentaires sont souvent choisies pour assurer l’harmonie de la scène, soit avec la garde-robe des modèles, la couleur des murs ou en post-production. La palette de couleur de la scène permet de regrouper des images qui autrement seraient disparates.
Il faut donc connaitre les couleurs complémentaires qui sont utilisées pour la photo éditoriale.
Le sens d’appartenance est aussi lié à la congruence de composition. Par exemple, avec les photos de mariage, on choisira souvent un arrière plan noir ou très sombre, ou un fond de couleur crème, pour assurer une continuité entre différents sites.
4. Raconter une histoire
On voit cette tendance avec l’usage d’une séquence d’images, ou une image chargée de détails et de symboles. Par exemple, l’utilisation d’une couleur comme le bleu impose une impression de lourdeur, alors que l’orange communique un sentiment de chaleur.
5. Composition
Le DOP utilise fréquemment la règle des tiers et les lignes de fuite pour composer les images. Ces techniques sont aussi utilisées en photographie.
L’utilisation d’un miroir permet de créer une scène plus complexe, avec des profondeurs de champ et des variations d’éclairage. Ces techniques peuvent être utilisées par les photographes
References
Influence of Cinematography on Photographic Production
https://fstoppers.com/editorial/three-ways-cinematography-can-improve-your-photography-138114
Three Ways Cinematography Can Improve Your Photography by Robert K Bagg
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-cinematography-and-photography
What is the difference between cinematography and photography?
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/ryszard-lenczewski-cinematography-from-still-to-movie
Cinematography: From Still to Movie to photographs, interview with Ryszard Lenczewski
Jeff Wall, A view from an apartment, 2004
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wall-a-view-from-an-apartment-t12219
Between the city and death, by Julien Foulatier 2013
Creating Photographic Art – Exclusive Interview With Gregory Crewdson 2014