Photography by Gregory Crewdson
Gregory Crewdson uses Hollywood techniques to create glossy Edward Hopper-esque portraits of American life. He works like a Film Director with an enormous crew and artificial lighting. But where Hopper stripped life bare, Credson’s images offer an overabundance of detail.
Crewdson’s photographs usually take place in small-town America, but are dramatic and cinematic. They feature often disturbing, surreal events. His photographs are elaborately staged and lit using crews familiar with motion picture production and lighting large scenes using motion picture film equipment and techniques. He has cited the photographer Diane Arbus and the films “Vertigo”, “The Night of the Hunter”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Blue Velvet” and “Safe” as having influenced his style.