Gregory Crewdson

American photographer Gregory Crewdson can take months, years, to find the moment he's looking for. "The pictures are about creating a world," says Crewdson in the acclaimed documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters. "I've always had images inside my head that I feel like I want to get out in the world." Crewdson starts his projects by location scouting, driving the streets of small-town Massachusetts, often visiting the same spots again and again. At this stage he doesn’t take a camera. Instead, he wants to get a real sense of the place – uninhibited by the lens. Once a location is set, he takes photos on his phone and works with his team to write a ‘description’ for each scene. From here on he operates like a film director. Lights, actors, wardrobe, art direction, props, cars. Crewdson takes all of his pictures at twilight, when the artificial lights of suburbia and fading light of the day work together in harmony. Eventually, the moment comes. For a split second, everything is calm, still and perfect.

Crewdson's fascination with Massachusetts, where most of his photos are taken, started in childhood. His family built a cabin in the woods there, where they spent weekends and holidays away from their Brooklyn home. Crewdson has taken nearly all of his photographs in New England and sees that as an essential part of his work. "I think of myself as a very American artist, coming out of that tradition," he says. "I always wanted my pictures to have a certain type of ambience, a certain type of feel. Spielberg and Lynch and Hitchcock, what they all share is a certain type of theatricality." And you can see these influences in Crewdson's pictures. Ordinary things are mysterious and dramatic. Everything has the eerie mystery of the white picket fence in the David Lynch classic Blue Velvet – one of Crewdson's favourite films. Every image contains a gripping psychological drama.