Gregory Crewdson is someone I could really sympathize with and understand through the way the documentary explains his process and portrays him. I could see where he comes from and why he makes the pictures that he does. His background and the places he photographs also felt relatable to me especially his fascination with suburban landscapes and overlooked parts of America that are tucked away and forgotten.

Quote #1:

Gregory Crewdson: "GE pulled out and there's a certain kind of emptied out quality to it, sadness, the empty out streets. That's like a byproduct of that." 

Russell Banks " Those are abandoned towns, ah, factory near towns. So those towns just died and they have never really recovered. And there's a kind of haunted quality to them I think, uhm, at the Gregory's pictures captures exactly." 

Rick Moody:  "I mean, there's something spectacular about the settings in those shots that has to do I think with the way capitalism is failing in a very beautiful ancient landscape. I mean, I don't know that you could see them down and say, you know, is there an implicit economic critique happening in these images. He would resist that probably, but I think there is. There's a sense of heightened emotion and drama partly because of the disenfranchisement that's taking place there. The majority of American's live lives some quiet desperation and those of the lives that Gregory is portraying. To me it's a, it's a humanistic embrace that has political implications. But I think Greg wants the images to be able to live, you know, on 50 different registers at once. 

Gregory Crewdson: "I just think that the pictures capture some of the sense of despair or poverty but they're not political in any direct way. If that is there, I want it to be more submerged in terms of the content."

In the documentary, he photographs a town in Massachusetts where a lot of the spaces reflect struggle, economic decay, and the effects that large corporations can have when they leave an area. When one major institution leaves, the town and community can start to die with it. That is something I see a lot back home in West Virginia, in many of the towns around me and even in the town where I grew up. So much can be held up by one employer or institution, and when that disappears, it leaves behind pain and the collapse of everything connected to it. I think it is important to Crewdson, and to me as well, to preserve those places before they disappear completely, before they are torn down, forgotten, or turned into a parking lot. I could also relate to his photographic process. He starts with an idea or a vision while driving around and looking for locations, but he also allows things to appear naturally as he explores. I also often wander to get ideas and to explore new places to take photos. Crewdson then brings in actors, positions them in the space, and spends days building the scene around that vision. I also think there is a lot of adaptation involved in that process. Even if he has a clear image in his head, once a person is standing in the location or the lighting changes, it may not look the way he originally imagined it. He has to work within the tight constraints of the moment, especially because many of his shoots take place at dusk. He is cautious and meticulous, but he is also constantly using ingenuity to refine the scene and make the photograph become what it needs to be in the limited time available.

Quote #2:

“my original intention was to fallow my fathers footsteps and become a psychiatrist. When I was going through school I had a very hard time with academia and certainly had undiagnosed dyslexia still struggle with it today, wasn't very active with reading, and taking tests was always a huge struggle for me”

His personal background was relatable to me, aswell. He originally wanted to go to school and follow a path similar to his father’s, studying psychology and becoming an academic or doctor in that field. Eventually, he realized that the academic side of it was not really right for him. Even though he had deep thoughts and could understand himself and other people, he could not necessarily succeed within the academic structure of testing, rules, and proving yourself in a very specific way. I relate to that because I started college wanting to be an engineer. I still feel like I have an engineering mind: I like creating things, solving problems, and making things with my hands and my mind. But when it came to the academic setting, especially testing and doing math and science under pressure, I struggled. I could understand ideas and have the drive to create, but I could not always make everything work in that one moment during an exam. Similarly to Gregory, despite having that ingenuity and zeal, I felt like the academic institution was structured in a way that did not allow me to succeed at those original goals. Switching into art and photography gave me a different direction for my creativity. It helped me escape some of that pressure, but it also opened a path where I could prove myself through projects, structured assignments, and the time and effort I put into making something instead of my memory or mental capacity in a given moment.