Period 4 -- Critical Analysis #9

1/23/2020

Today you will be writing about this photograph made by artist Gregory Crewdson.

Read this short biography for Crewdson before you write:

Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic or disturbing, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, thanks to the artist’s painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast. “My pictures are about a search for a moment—a perfect moment,” Crewdson has explained. Born on September 26, 1962 in Brooklyn, NY, the artist works with large production teams to scout and shoot his images. His work has been exhibited widely, notably including solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in New York, the San Diego Museum of Art, and White Cube in London, among many others. A 1988 graduate of the Yale School of Art, he has served on its faculty since 1993 and is currently the director of its graduate studies in photography. The artist lives and works in New York, NY.

Your analysis must be 5 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember to post your analysis as a comment to the blog post that corresponds to your class. If you post your analysis to the wrong class's post, it will not be graded.

If you do not complete your analysis in class, you must finish and post it by midnight today!

Refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

Describe specifics.
Describe form.
Describe the content.
Evaluate the image

Your analyses will be graded on:

meeting minimum length requirements
depth of organization
evaluation of the content
grammar/punctuation

Kurt Bliss

1/23/2020 09:29:54 am

The picture is of a man kneeling on the ground in his garage on what appears to be folded earth. There is a car with its headlights on and it is raining outside. The car is parked diagonally and some of it is outside and some inside. The man appears to have seen what was going on in the garage and quickly got out of his car to check what was up until he found the horrifying truth. The image is using dark colors to portray the seriousness and darkness of the situation.

The image is pleasing to look at because there is a ton to see and the image itself tells a story that the viewer can follow. The rule of thirds is not being used in this image as the subject being the man is centered in the frame. The image uses a deep depth of field to capture everything in the image from the man to the rain to the car. The man is the focal point of the image and the garage frame acts as lines directing your focus to the car and the man. The image is not balanced and I think that is part of the point. The car is crooked and the ground raised and destroyed.

It think this image is mainly trying to tell the viewer a story about this man's life. I think the man was working on something important in his garage and when he came home it was gone. I think this image teaches us a lot about loss and losing something that’s important. The author is trying to use dark colors to portray the loss of something this man has created. It's meant to portray a sense of sadness and sorrow. The image is beatiful.Its very creative and the use of the stage allows the photographer to create any scene he wants.

I do like the image. It is very creative and addresses some interesting concepts that I think are important. The way the author uses a stage to create something that seems natural to the viewer is awesome and very smart. I like the use of dark colors to portray the sadness in the image.

This image probably required a lot of thought and work to create a scene and photo that the viewer would enjoy. The stage had to convey what the photographer wanted it to and it had to be set up exactly according to the creator and what he wanted to accomplish with the photo. The images use of rain and the car and how the ground comes up is awesome and very cool to look at.

Zac

1/23/2020 09:32:39 am

In the photo there is a sad looking man. Near him are bunches of grass. There are farming tools around him. There is a car behind him. He’s in a garage and it is raining outside.

When I look at this photo, I look in the background first. I think it is because of the change in color in the background. The headlights of the car behind the man attract my attention also. The sides of the photo have the sides of the garage. In the background, you can see a dimmed light.

One theme is that the guy is sad because he was gardening but then it rained and his crops are messed up. The rain on the car in the background reminds me of the first Jurassic Park movie when the T-rex was first shown. It is pretty interesting how the person taking the photo was able to set up the old looking car and get it to look like its raining hard. For some reason it reminds me of when we used to live in another house and it was raining hard just like this. The cars headlight and the rain also reminds me of some dreams I had.

I like the photo. Looking at it gives me some sort of deja vu feeling. I think that this was a very successful photo. The dark colors and the light of the headlights remind me of something but I just don’t know what it is. This is probably one of the best photos I’ve ever scene.

Some ways the photographer might have taken the photo is by using a machine to poor water down on the car and use lights to give the top of the car a small shine. Behind the car there's something. I can’t tell what it is though. The photographer may have use small light to light the persons shit a little in the photo. They might have taken this in an old neighborhood. This photo is one of my favorites.

MJ Ervin

1/23/2020 09:37:18 am

This image is of a man or kid in the garage with the car parked outside. Its using dark colors and like one light source. The lighting is dark and not a lot of bright colors. The things in this image are a boy, it seems to be a dog but its hard to see. It seems the guy is hanging with his dog in the garage on a rainy night.

It's a weird image to look at because is kinda different vibes coming at you. The rule of thirds is not being used in this image. The point of view is kinda like a side/front profile of the guy. There is a long depth of field because you can see the guy but also the car and some of the lights in the background. The lines are kinda the outlining of the garage but other then that i don't really see any other lines. The image is mostly symmetrica it could get a little more symmetrical but its still pretty symmetrical. The subject does not fill the frame but it depends on what you think is supposed to be the main subjects. The edge of the frame is the inside of the garage. The negative space is more in the corners and floor. The positive space is more in the center of the frame.

I can't tell the theme but it looks like a sad picture. The story is hard to tell but maybe he is cant go inside or he just has to be outside for some reason. Umm it kinda looks like a movie I saw with the colors and time period but don't remember what it was called. I don't know why he made this image because I can't really tell what it is. I just realized that its hay i'm pretty sure but still don't know why he made this image. The image is kinda pleasing to look at it just makes me confused/sad.

I am not a fan of the image. That doesn't mean it's not cool but I just can't tell what its supposed to be or be off. This photo is both successful and not. I mean it seems to be successful because of the time and how it is interesting to look at. To me this image isn't that successful.

The process of this image probably took a while. First they would need the garage. Then they would need the car and the hay and the model. They probably set everything up and had the camera on the tripod. They probably have that one light source and the back lit from outside. Then probably made some adjustments in lightroom or not idk but that's what i think the process was.

diego Saucedo/ Critical analysis In this picture we can see a man stading on what looks to be a garage, the man seems to be surrounded by gardening tools and some big balls of lawn, the man also is wearing a shit and pants that are dirty from the mud a

1/23/2020 09:37:26 am

Critical analysis

In this picture we can see a man stading on what looks to be a garage, the man seems to be surrounded by gardening tools and some big balls of lawn, the man also is wearing a shit and pants that are dirty from the mud and the dirt, he seems to be traumatized by something he saw before that time or he did something bad and he’s trying to do something to cover it, while on the background we can see an old car, and the street lamps in the rain.

And if you see closely you can see a park in the distance, and some other stacks of lawn and behind the car.
This picture was staged because the photographer build a set and staged everything to take the picture, I think he tried to make it seem like an old horror movie or something similar, the rain looks to be real so i think they waited for a rainy day just to take the picture.

The content of this picture is a man that might have did something wrong that he had to cover something, like murder, or he was just cleaningup after a long day of work , and he was just tired and muddy, the picture uses artificial lighting for the focal zone and the background uses natural because its night time and there is no light during the night.

This image is really good, because it makes you think,about what was the background story of that scene, this image also reminds me of the movie jurassic park because of the tone of it and how it represents the scene f what happened, this image is also really good in terms of lighting because they got the small details illuminated so the veiewer can see it.

The way that this image was made was, the artist made a set and had the actor sit there with all the props and the car in the background, this is really smart because it gives the image the tone of dark and disturbing, meaning its a disturbing tone/ scene.

anaya zachery

1/23/2020 09:38:04 am

This image depicts a man kneeling in his garage with a sort of sad, far off look on his face. It is dark and rainy outside; this is probably in the middle of the night. In front of the man is what looks to be some sort of grass or garden. The man has gardening tools and has dirt on his clothes, as if he has been working for a while. Behind him is a truck with its headlights on, and there is more of the grass stuff in the bed of the truck.

It doesn’t really look as though the photographer used the rule of thirds; the subject looks pretty centered in the frame. I would say that the depth of field is fairly deep, though it’s difficult to tell with all the rain. I would say that the focal point is definitely the man in the foreground. However, the open garage door serves as a sort of frame for the background, so that leads me to believe that Crewdson wanted to draw attention there too. The negative space in the image is filled with the car, grass, and the rainy scene outside.

This photograph is kind of confusing. I’m not sure exactly what the photographer was trying to convey with it, but judging from the sort of surreal elements of the photo, I can assume that he is maybe telling a story? The absurdity of the man gardening in his garage is enough to make the viewer stop and think about what is going on, not to mention the ominous shadows in the rain. The man looks exhausted, as if the work he is putting in is not for his own gain. To find out more about the meaning behind the photo, I’ll probably need to research more about the photographer and look at more of his work.

I do really enjoy this photo, although it sort of makes me uncomfortable in a way. The darker colors make it ominous and kind of confusing. I like the bizarreness of the scene and the strange things that are going on. The ambiguity of it is interesting, and is something I always enjoy in a photo. I would definitely say that this photo was successful, as it creates a sense of mystery and makes the viewer want to find out more.

This photo appears to be a natural set up, and like the only light sources are coming from the truck and streetlights in the back. However, because of what we know about the photographer, we know that he used studio lights to create the effect that we see in the photo. This seems like it would have been kind of difficult to create; not only to come up with the idea, but to also execute it properly. I think that this type of photography is very interesting because it requires the photographer to have a lot of creativity to stage the photos and I think it’s cool that they can manipulate parts of the photo to create the effect that they want. I really like this concept and would like to see more work from Crewdson.

Elise Miles

1/23/2020 09:41:38 am

The image is of a middle aged man looking at this big blob of greenery in what it looks like to be his garage. The garage is opened to his car and it is raining outside. The colors in the image are blue, green, and black. The lighting is dark even though you can still see almost everything in the image clearly. The objects in the image are the man, his car, the matches next to him, and the bunches of greenery. In the image the man is looking at his greenery blob and looks depressed.

The rule of thirds is not being used because the subject is in the middle of the image. The point of view is from inside the garage and a little bit far from the man. There is a very deep shallow depth of field because nothing is really focused on. The focal point is the depressed man. The lines in the image are the outline of the garage and the sides of the car. The subject does not fill the image, there is extra space. At the edge of the image is the sides of the garage and the extra greenery.

The ideas of the image are that maybe the greenery is alive or the man tried killing it but couldn’t. The story behind the image is that the man was driving into his garage and but couldn’t get in the garage because the greenery was blocking him. The artist made the image to get the viewer to have a creepy vibes and weird feelings. The image reminds me of a few Goosebumps stories I’ve read before. It does not question any beleifs and it is not beautiful.

I don’t like the image because it gives me the creeps. There is one green blob behind the man looking as if it’s going to attack him. And the car seems to be on like the man just got out of the car. There is also a few rakes and stuff to probably fight the greenery. The man also looks defeated and dirty as if he lost a fight with the greenery.

The photo is successful because it really makes you feel weird. Like it would be great to be a cover for a creepy story or movie. The image is very excellently just and good. It defintaly would get an award or thing. It is speical.

Garrett Greiner

1/23/2020 09:43:47 am

This is an image of a man sitting in his garage surrounded by what appears to be rolls of fake grass/turf. The garage door is open, and we can see that it is raining outside. Various gardening tools are scattered about and hanging on the walls of the garage. We see a car parked outside with its headlights on. Nobody appears to be in the car. The man is lit up by the headlights of the car. It looks like the man has already moved some of the rolls of turf outside next to his car, and he placed one on top as well. He seems very depressed, and seems miserable. He looks like he doesn’t want to be there doing what he is doing. There are two containers on the right side of the garage door. This image has darker lighting. They took it at night, so everything is dark, except for the man who is lit up by the headlights.

I think that the image looks pleasing. The man is framed by the garage door opening, and he is further surrounded by the car and the mounds of turf. The rule of thirds isn’t being used in this image, but the man isn’t centered in the frame either, as he is just a little off center. The photographer shot this image at eye-level. The photographer used deep-depth of field, as everything in the frame is clear/everything is in focus. The lines that make up the garage door frame help guide the viewer’s attention from the top to bottom and from left to right. The piles of turf help bring your attention towards the center, which leads you to the subject. The image isn’t very symmetrical. Most of the subject is shifted right of the center. The frame crops off some tools on the left hand side of the screen, and it crops off the top part of the garage door.

I think that solitude and sadness are two themes of this image. The setting creates a gloomy mood, as it is raining outside in the image. The man seems to be sad that his garage is a mess and that he has to roll up the turf. He is dirty, it is late at night, and he probably wants to be in bed, or at least have someone there with him. The streets are empty, and he is the only one in sight, which is why I think solitude is a theme of this image. I think there is probably a story behind this image, but I don’t really know where to start. It looks like the turf used to be inside of his garage and instead of having a normal floor he had turf. I don’t understand why he would go through the effort of moving it inside of his garage to roll up than doing it outside. And if it was raining, why not just wait until tomorrow morning? The whole situation is very odd, and I don’t exactly know what to think of it. I think that it looks pretty cool, but it just seems odd and pretty random.

I like the image, mainly because of the lighting. Having it be dark, and then having the man lit up with the headlights of the car looks pretty cool. I think that taking this picture while it was raining made the image much better. I’m not too sure what the photograph is trying to convey, so I can’t comment on whether it is successful or not. But to me, I don’t really think that it is successful, because I just don’t really see the importance of this image or situation. It is quite random and it is a situation that just seems made up.

I think that the bulk of the work behind creating this image had to do with planning. I don’t know if the rain was planned or not. I was wondering if the night they planned to shoot the image it started to rain and they rolled with it because it looked better. If it was planned, then timing was on their side. I would think that they would have to gather the turf, put it exactly in the place they wanted it to be, and set everything up. The car still having its headlights turned on doesn’t make any sense, and it makes it seem like that was planned. But regardless, a lot of thought had to have been put into planning this image, and the timing had to be just right.

dana salinas

1/23/2020 09:44:03 am

In the image by Gregory Crewdson, there is a man kneeling in a garage or shed and has a very disappointed or sad look on his face. The man is wearing bright colors, which make him glow in the dim lights and makes him the main point of focus. The man is surrounded by what looks like trees or artificial grass. There are also gardening tools around him and intertwined with the artificial grass. The lighting and colors are very dull and the only things that really stand out are the man’s shirt and the car headlights.
I think that this image is pleasing to look at because of the contrasting colors and how balanced the image is. The image is framed because the artist doesn’t really cut off any important or essential objects in the image. Crewdson also made sure that the garage door was perfectly in place and in the middle of the image. It is aligned within the frame and has symmetry. There is an equal amount of space on both sides of the garage door and also on top of it. I think that the artist purposely placed the object more to the right than the center to make the image more relaxed and not so set up.
The author chose to only highlight some parts of the image such as the man’s shirt, the inside of the car, and the rolled up grass on the man’s right. The image is a little odd because there is grass on the hood of the car as well as in the back of it. Which makes me think that he was probably trying to remodel or place the grass inside the garage but he might’ve accidentally hit it with his car, to the point where there is some on it. If we take a harder look on the man’s features, there are evident mud spots on his arms and all over his shirt. Maybe he has been working for a long time or he was trying to get the grass inside because of the thunderstorm.
The theme of this image, I believe, is to portray how some people choose to save certain aspects of life or nature from other inevitable disasters. There is a thunderstorm outside and the man looks tired from either pulling the grass or just messing with it. That explains his dirty arms and shirt. I think that the image is quite interesting because we don’t know for sure what’s going on or why the grass is inside. The grass also looks fake, so it’s questionable why the man is covered with mud.
I think that this image is very eye pleasing because the more you look at it, the more things you can find hidden in it. I think that the lighting is successful in not giving everything away right away. Maybe that’s why the artist chose to only highlight certain parts of the image, to draw our attention and distract us from the image as a whole and appreciate the little things that were carefully put in place. I think that this image is successful because it has many things that we would not usually see in an image.

Nathan Bond

1/23/2020 09:48:01 am

In this picture, there is a man sitting on his knees in a garage with a car behind him and rain outside the garage. There are bags of grass all around him and gardening tools scattered around the room. The man is white and has blond hair. He is wearing a light blue button-up shirt with the collar open, brown pants and a watch. His clothes are dirty, he has mud all over him, and a frown on his face.

The man looks like he just got back from working because the car’s headlights are still on and it’s not in the garage. There are bags of grass everywhere and some still not unpacked in and on the car. He looks like he is questioning his life and looks like he has given up because there is a couple of tools by his side that he’s not using and grass that’s only half-unpacked and scattered everywhere. He also looks stressed out and lonely because he is alone in the garage in the night while it’s raining. There is also tarp on the floor to so the grass doesn’t get the garage dirty.

The lighting is dark and the colors are green blue and black. This photo isn’t pleasing to look at but it’s interesting. The photo was taken in the front of the garage. The photo frames the whole garage, so you can see the man’s car and all of the floor and tools on the walls. The subject doesn’t fill the frame and there is extra space.

The negative space is everywhere in the garage and the positive is everywhere outside the garage because it’s not as dark but everything in the image is pretty dark and there aren’t any bright colors. The ideas in this image are about a man who is lonely and going through a hard time. The artist probably made this image to show an example of what it looks like to be in a difficult time. This photo reminds me of Jurassic Park because of the rain, darkness, and car all look like a scene from that movie. It also reminds me of other movies where people get on their knees when they are distressed.

This image is interesting because it makes me wonder what happened to him. Why is he on the ground alone at night looking depressed? Why is there grass everywhere? What was he going to do with the grass? I don’t like or hate this photo I just think it’s interesting. I would say this photo is successful because it got me hooked and got me asking questions.

Ryan Shields

1/23/2020 01:16:56 pm

This image is of a dirty person sitting on their knees in their garage surrounded by partly unrolled sod and gardening equipment at night while it’s pouring outside. There's also an older car (probably from the 80s) with sod stuck to the bumper, on top of the car, and piled around the back. It’s using lots of darker colors, really the only brighter colors are the sod and the lights on the car. The colors are probably darker to give a more ominous feel to the image. It has very dark lighting, the only light is coming from the car headlights and the porch lights outside the garage. There are lots of objects in this image, there's the sod, gardening equipment, the person, the car, the garage, and the stop sign and house in the background. In this image there's a distressed looking person covered in dirt and surrounded by partially unrolled sod.

The image is pleasing to look at because the more you look at it the more questions you have about it. The rule of thirds is being used, and the image has been taken in 3rd person. The angle at which the picture was taken was a little ways to the left of where the subject was looking. A more middle depth of field is being used, and there are not a lot of lines in the image and they don't really move your eye cross the image they’re kind of just there. The image is asymmetrical, but I think that's on purpose to show the imbalance that the image is representing. The subject doesn’t fill the frame, and there isn’t anything cropped off. Almost the entire image is filled with negative space except where the headlights and porch lights shine into the garage and driveway.

A theme in the image is darkness and unknowing. There might be a story being told, it looks kind of like a scene in a horror movie where someone’s hiding a body. I don’t know why the artist made the image, they might have just made it because it looks cool. The image reminds me of some kind of scary movie. The image does not question one of my beliefs. I think the image is interesting because it looks cool and I have no idea what's going on, so you're left to try to fill in the blanks.

I like the image because it’s mysterious. I think the photograph is successful because it’s intriguing to look at.

I don’t know how they made this photo but they could have made the photo by taking an old car and a whole lot of sod, and then waited for it to rain and went over to someone's garage and set up the shot.

Max

1/26/2020 08:40:21 am

This image is of a middle-aged man, maybe in his late forties working on a patch of something in what looks like a garage. After doing more research, you learn that the “actor” in this photo is a character in Jurassic Park played by William H. Macy. Although I am not sure what is laying beside him, it looks like tools for digging up or working on whatever he is working on. The car in the background suggests that it is in the late 1980s or 90s. The look on his face is that of confusion or despair, maybe thinking about something that happened, or maybe just wondering what he’s doing, we may never know. The lighting in this photo is clearly staged, but it’s a beautiful kind of stage. You can barely tell it is at all, given that it looks like it’s a dark, and rainy night outside the comfort of the garage he is situated in.

The point of view is just straight, there is no bird’s eye or bug’s eye view in this photo. The main focal point of the photo is Actually William Macy himself, who is framed by the garage he is in on the top, and the huge lumps of grass and dirt around him. The lines of the photo direct your eyes right to his face. At the edge of the image is the roof of the garage and a few tools hanging on the walls.

There is a theme in this image that sort of screams this “dystopian suburban” feel. The group that this image was made in was meant to be the photographer photographing dramatized suburban life. He does so in a usually disturbing or melancholic manner. The story here is pretty simple, and it looks like this photo was taken right after William Macy did Jurassic Park. Everything down to the last detail is from the late 60s. This image actually reminds me of a dream I had once, where I was stuck in a house that definitely wasn’t my own. It was very dark and cold and rainy, and I had just figured out the code to the garage door. The picture is definitely interesting.

I love the image, and not only because William H. Macy is in it, but because it was extremely well done. Crewdson did a very good job with this photo, and it is very clear that this image was incredibly painstakingly hard to do.

Tomas Espejo

1/27/2020 06:34:46 pm

Some of the colors that are used in the photo include of blue, black, green, yellow, orange, white, and light brown. Blue is being used for the foggy sky in the background. And yellow, and white are being used for the headlights from the car that is i the photo. Light brown is the color of the gentlemen’s pants. Green is being used for the grass in the image. Orange is also a color from the headlights.

A couple of things that are being cut off by the edge of the image include the other parts of the garage and the other sides of the parking lot. The top of the picture is cutting off the other part of the ceiling and roof of the room that they are in. The left and right side of the edges cuts off the other parts of the driveway and also the other half of the room that the photo is taken in. The bottom of the photo cuts off the rest of the garage and some of the grass thats laying there.

I think that there is a story that is being told in this photo. I think whoever the man is inside the room, that's his car and it broke down. I think he got it to where he could fix it and then he wandered into the room and found a lot of grass inside it. After the man is tired i think that he decides to spend the night there because it started to rain and his car was still broken.

This image is interesting, noteworthy, and beautiful. This image is noteworthy because you kinda wonder how that care got there and and how that man got there. It can also be noteworthy because of the whole main idea of this photo. This picture is interesting because you would question how the man got to the place in the photo. This image is beautiful how the fog and the rain contrast really good in the background.

I like this picture and dislike this picture. I enjoy looking at it because I could wonder how the setting took place. And also what length they went to make this photo. I also like this photo because of how the rain and fog contrast really well in the background. I can not like this photo because of how the image i

George Welch

2/21/2020 09:36:22 am

This image uses a lot of darker, mysterious colors. There are a lot of shadows and not a lot of bright lights. Much of the light in this image is coming from the car headlights and a light coming from above the person. The person in the image is sitting in a plot of grass in his garage. He is also surrounded by yard tools.

This picture is taken from the point of view of someone walking into the garage from the inside of the house. There is a very deep depth of field because everything in the image is in focus. The image crops off a lot of the surrounding parts of the garage. There is however quite a bit of extra space. The rule of thirds does not seem to be used in this image.

The themes in this image include mystery and a little suspense (from my point of view). It looks like something is going to happen to the guy sitting on the grass. Behind the car, it also looks like there’s something creeping up behind him. I feel like this is a part of a story of images. I do think the image is very mysterious and interesting to look at.

I think the artist had to get a lot of preparation for this image. I think this probably took a while to make because of the rain and lighting involved. The set up also looks like it took a while. It looks like it took a group effort. It definitely took effort to get this image.

I like this image. I like how it has a mysterious vibe to it. I also like the guy sitting on the pile of grass/moss. He reminds me of someone who belongs in a movie like Jurassic Park. I think this photo is successful because of how it looks so mysterious.

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Period 4 -- Critical Analysis #9

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