Interview with Photographer Gregory Crewdson - The American Reader

http://theamericanreader.com/interview-with-photographer-gregory-crewdson/

• 'His images are rich in detail, and there is not a thing in the frame—not a stain, not a lampshade—that he does not carefully select. And yet, this abundance of detail is balanced with a striking lack of information—the settings are ordinary (a suburban kitchen, a living room, a dark street corner)—and, more importantly, the frame is de-contextualized: we don’t know what happens before or after, or who these people even are.'
• 'The effect of this combination of visual detail and narrative restraint is that there are as many narratives possible for each of his images as there are viewers of it: each person comes to the image with their own anxieties and desires, which they project onto the scene.'

Gregory Crewdson - Answers

• 'For all the talk of my pictures being narratives or that they’re about storytelling, there’s really very little actually happening in the pictures.'
• 'Since a photograph is frozen and mute, since there is no before and after, I don’t want there to be a conscious awareness of any kind of literal narrative.'
• 'That way, the viewer is more likely to project their own narrative onto the picture.'
• 'What the viewer brings to it is almost more important than what I bring to it.'
• 'I started thinking of motel rooms, and I thought of that motel room in Psycho. But that was just a starting point, and through the process of making the picture, the picture changed. I think subconsciously we all have a connection to that imagery and a certain kind of dread.'
• 'Well, if my pictures are about anything at all, I think it’s about trying to make a connection in the world. I see them as more optimistic in a certain way. Even though it’s very clear there’s a level of sadness and disconnection, I think that they’re really about trying to make a connection and almost the impossibility of doing so.'
• 'I think that’s really kind of a beautiful point, that at the core there is something very childhood-like about the whole activity of building and constructing a world. My mom just recently reminded me that I used to build these little miniature worlds outside at our country house and populate it with little figures.'
• 'That whole thing about trying to create a world – there’s something very connected to childhood and reverie and daydreaming and fantasy.'