The Artist’s Statement:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately” a well-known 19th century writer declared in his ode to the natural world. I, as a photographer, have owed much to the natural world, and in my year’s sojourn in St. Louis’ Forest Park, managed to learn a great deal more about a place I thought I already knew. I finished the year with worn out shoes, a well-thumbed copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, a lot of new friends, and 68,492 photographs.
Every journey has a single step at its beginning, but this one actually started with a thought, and that thought matured slowly through the fall of 2005 and throughout the following year. In 2007 I bought a telephoto zoom lens for a trip to Kenya, and practiced with it in Forest Park. One hot morning in June of that year, I stopped my bicycle to watch a yellow-crowned night heron feasting on crayfish near the Union Avenue entrance. That was a year with a lot of time spent there in what one writer has called “St. Louis’ Town Square”. In 2008 I was out of town a lot, working on other projects, as I planned and prepared for my largest photographic essay ever. I registered a domain name (ForestPark365.com), designed the site and prepared my equipment. December 31, 2008 I took the first day’s photos (images were published for the day after they were taken) and from then on, I kept my eyes fixed on the prize.
Edward Crim has been wielding a camera since he was a child. But lately, his photos are actually looking good. |
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