Fireflies

In the summer of 1996, Gregory Crewdson spent two solitary months at his family's cabin in Becket, Massachusetts. Using both small- and medium-format cameras, he obsessively photographed the fireflies that came alive at dusk each evening. Crewdson was drawn to the flickering lights, in part, by the underlying impossibility of capturing their elusive beauty in pictures. This luxurious volume, featuring 61 full-page tritone reproductions, calls to mind many of the hallmarks of Crewdson's oeuvre, from the sense of wonder in the nocturnal landscape, to the focus on light as a narrative event, to the fascination with nature as a psychological mystery. Although consistent in terms of their subject matter, these photographs demonstrate a wide scope of visual expression ranging from almost pure abstraction to more idyllic representations of the natural landscape.