Deeply psychological and intimate: a look into Yale lecturer Gregory Crewdson’s work
Gregory Crewdson, the director of graduate studies in photography at the School of Art, is a renowned American photographer, whose work blurs the line between reality and fiction.
Courtesy of Gregory Crewdson
A man stands in the middle of a misty road, staring at a fallen light post, seemingly waiting for something to happen. Except, nothing ever will, because he is forever suspended in a photograph.
This scene is captured by Gregory Crewdson ART ’88 in “Starkfield Lane.”
Crewdson is a critically acclaimed American photographer and serves as the director of graduate studies in photography at the School of Art. His work has been displayed at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as his Instagram page, which boasts over 180,000 followers.
“In a still picture, it’s just one frozen moment, kind of stuck in time,” said Crewdson. “So what I try to do is invest that one moment with as much care and beauty and mystery as possible.”
His elaborately planned photographs are known for invoking a sense of uncanniness and mystery.
If Crewdson’s works seem like a still from a movie, it’s because the photographs are shot by a sizable production crew and top-notch equipment. Each detail included in the photo is meticulously curated to create one special moment.
“He directs you to a certain psychological space through the use of casting and directing, the specificity of the props and signage, the targeted lighting with lots of shadows, darkness and mist allowed to creep in,” Lisa Kereszi ART ʼ00, assistant director of graduate studies in photography, wrote to the News.
His work focuses on the American landscape and culture, as well as transforming the familiar and ordinary into something unexpected, Crewdson said.
The psychological aspects of Crewdson’s works may be influenced by moments from Crewdson’s childhood. His father was a psychoanalyst who used their house’s basement as an office space.
One of Crewdson’s earliest memories, he recounts, is of trying to listen to his father’s sessions through the floorboards of his living room.
“I feel like that’s one of my first aesthetic moments, but it’s also defining of all the work I’ve done,” said Crewdson. “Like finding secrets in everyday life, something that feels forbidden or distant, voyeuristic.”
Crewdon’s process for starting a new series begins with location scouting — he drives around, looks for the right places and envisions the kinds of photos he will create.
The intimate landscape featured in his photography includes the Massachusetts towns of Becket and Pittsfield. Many of the photos are taken in the “same few towns,” said Christian Badach, Crewdson’s former assistant. Badach is now a first-year MFA student at the School of Art.
“By then I’ll have like 15 to 20 images in my mind, and then I work with my team and we come together like a movie, and we shoot for like six weeks,” Crewdson said.
According to Crewdson, lighting is an especially critical character in his photographs. It’s the way he tells a story through his photographs, said Crewdson. He explores his fascination with light in “Early Work (1986-1988),” a collection of photos he made while he was a professional student at Yale.
After the elaborate process of taking the photos, Crewdson further refines these pictures in post-production to perfect his vision. He documents some of this extensive process on his website, Crewdson Trail Log.
Despite the carefully staged and focused nature of his work, Crewdson said his photos are always based in “something real.”
“There’s always in the pictures the kind of intersection between everyday life and fiction,” Crewdson said.
Many of his photos are open-ended in nature, said Kereszi. This element allows viewers to connect and bring their own story to the picture. According to Crewdson, the “viewer finishes the work in a certain way.”
In “Woman at Sink,” a pensive woman stands limply at a kitchen sink — as if she awaits a climactic moment that never seems to come. What she waits for is unknown to the viewer.
The Albertina museum in Vienna recently held a retrospective of Crewdson’s work, spanning over three and a half decades. Across the years, however, Crewdson said the story he tells remains the same.
“Every artist has one story to tell, and then it’s just the task of kind of retelling that story over and over again and reinventing it, changing it. You can’t get away from who you are,” Crewdson said.
Crewdson maintains this sentiment in his teaching, helping students discover and capture their own story, according to Kereszi. In addition to his role as a lecturer, Kereszi said that she could lean on him as “an example, experienced mentor, and as a friend.”
According to Shelli Weiler ART ’24, a former student of Crewdson, she finds an “instant and endless reckoning” within his photos. Understanding his works requires patience on the viewers’ end, said Weiler, as the photographs are about waiting.
At the end of this waiting, you still won’t find a tidy conclusion.
“In his photographs, a whole film feels at once condensed into a singular image and extended into eternity,” said Weiler. “The curtains refuse to draw and I am left suspended by something I can never know.”
The Yale School of Art is located at 1156 Chapel St.