I went this evening to a presentation by G. Crewdson at the Nelson-
Atkins Museum, done as an armchair chat with the museum's Assistant
Curator for Photography. The museum has one of his pieces hanging
which I had spent quite some time with the last time I was there.
Very fascinating stuff. To call him a photographer is stretching the
concept of photography as most of us know it, though he does use 8x10
film to capture his raw images. Everything he does is staged (some on
a movie-type sound stage, some in one of a handful of small towns in
New England) and involves a Photo Director, an Art Director, a
Casting person, dozens of flood lights, etc. He produces about 10
images per year. Very compelling images. And it was quite interesting
to hear him discuss what he does, why he does it that way. (BTW, not
to give away any of his secrets, but in his picture of the house
burning down, the house was not actually burnt down - they used
Hollywood special-effects pyrotechnics.)
The presentation was mostly chronological, a discussion of the
evolution of his vision and his techniques. (E.g., "at the time I was
fascinated with circles. From the crane [he did a series from an
elevated perspective using a tree-trimmer's cherry-picker] I had
spotted this one backyard. I left a note on the door asking if I
could come in their yard and make a circle of mulch on their fresh
grass. They called and said 'you do what you have to do.' So we went
in and made a perfect circle.") This was shortly after his shot of
the person laying sod across the street in front of his house,
connecting his yard with the yard of the house across the street. I
prefer his "twilight" series and more recent work.
In the Q&A the last question was whether he ever just went out with a
P&S or DSLR and just took pictures. He said that he is not really
comfortable with cameras but sometimes he remembers that he should be
taking pictures of his two boys, and pulls out a camera and fumbles
with it and asks his wife how to make it work...
In the intro they gave a long list of museums which have copies of
his work in their collections - look for his work next time you are
in your local museum or browsing the internet or in your local
bookstore. (E.g, several good pieces on his work on YouTube) If you
plan on buying a copy of one of his images, be warned that the
average size seems to be about 7x9. That is measured in feet, not
inches. Epson apparently made him a custom inkjet printer...
stan
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