Gregory Crewdson was born in Brooklyn in 1962. He received his MFA from Yale where he is now a professor. His work is elaborately staged and require a large crew and all sorts of equipment one would expect to see on a movie set. He and his team scout locations in small towns, often returning to the same locations multiple times. He shoots almost exclusively in the fifteen minutes before the sun sets using large format film cameras. The degree of control he exerts over every aspect of his work is amazing. Lighting, subject matter, placement of subjects and composition is all fine tuned. He also merges multiple images of areas in a scene, each one shot sharp as a tack and scaled to fit the scene resulting in an unnatural depth of field that adds a very surreal effect to many of his images. Below is one of my favorite examples of this technique:
The image shows his depth of field work and touches on an aspect of his life that also influences his work. His father is a psychoanalyst and he described his childhood as a bit tense with strict discipline, although not necessarily unpleasant. There is a strange and akward tension as these two, presumably mother and son, sit down to dinner. As is typical with his work, strange lighting, in this case visible through the kitchen window, emphasizes the exaggerated depth of field and adds to the surreal tension in the image.
This is a more straightforward image in terms of the layering for depth. The interesting thing is that this was actually constructed in the womans home, not on a set. Its almost like shes in a euphoric half dream induced by the alien abductors who are just outside. The sexual tension is high as she straddles a mound of obviously very fertile soil. This sort of symbolism and narrative is common in his work.
This boy had been following the crew around the town they were shooting in, and seemed very reluctant to part ways. There was mention of a bad home life he was trying to avoid and so Crewdson decided to use him in a shoot. Using his spotlight on a crane he lit this area and told the kid to think the most beautiful thing he could imagine. I thought that this was a very interesting way to make the point that what he is talking about are themes that are universal. Sexual tension, fear of the unknown, loneliness are the major themes he seems to be interested in. I think he does so in a highly unique and creative way while preserving the diginity of his subjects. It's not about individuality but the common experiences that make us who we are. I was fortunate to have seen Crewdson speak last year at the DMA.
Carmelo Bongiorno is an Italian photographer who I have admired for some time. He reminds me very much of his fellow countryman Mario Giacomelli in his use of a high contrast, sometimes tenebristic style.
This is a good example of his style. Abstract, high contrast work that is often manipulated by a very controlled panning style. He works almost exclusively in black and white. The image above is interesting in its symmetry, with the figure isolated in the white area being the anchor to the whole piece. Depth of field is usually very shallow in his work, and this is used to great effect in creating texture in some of his panned works.
This is a good example of the technique. The pan is not so dramatic as to cause streaking of the forms, nor so perfectly timed that they become sharp. By accentuating the movement and abstracting the forms slightly and employing the use of high contrast the images become interesting in terms of line, tonality and negative space as well as the content. Carmelo is very very consistent and seems to be able to reproduce this effect at will.
This is a commercial image shot for a magazine and I think it is interesting to see this side of his work. It sort of re enforces the cliche that you have to know the rules before you break them. Perhaps not true in every case, but his consistency and a very strong body of commercial work show Bongiorno is equally at home in either world, which I admire.
