[ back ]
A year in the park
(by Kara Krekeler - September 30, 2009)
Professional photographer Edward Crim has spent a lot of time in Forest Park this year.
Since Dec. 31, 2008, Crim has walked the few blocks between his home and Forest Park to spend a couple hours there each day, taking photographs both of the park’s grand institutions and views, and of the wildlife, plants and other easily overlooked entities. He’s cataloging the project online at www.forestpark365.com.
“The whole project was designed to help me get deeper into the park,” Crim said. Prior to starting his project, he had a more fleeting relationship with the park, zooming through on his bike or visiting iconic locations on business to shoot wedding or engagement photos. Nothing that really gave him time to fully examine his surroundings.
The project was also designed to help keep his photography skills sharp and figure out new ways of marketing his trade. “It’s a way of letting people know I’m here,” he said, noting that he often starts discussions with other people visiting the park, particularly those he photographs, whom he directs to the Forest Park 365 website.
While this is one of the most labor-intensive projects he’s done — Crim estimated that he spends up to five hours a day photographing, editing, blogging and posting for the project — it certainly isn’t the first. He’s previously done themed projects including everything from photographing things that are red to trekking across the country to document the 50 state capitol buildings. He’s still working on that one, with 38 down and 12 to go.
Of course, the Forest Park 365 project has played a part in delaying the state capitol project. Since he started, Crim has only skipped a few days in July when he left town for a paying photography gig in Nashville. During that time, his children filled in for him, taking pictures and blogging. “They have a similar view of things as I do,” he said.
Over the past nine months, Crim has gotten to know the park and its visitors quite well. During the project, he’s photographed around 80 species of birds and met an owl enthusiast who has been following a mating pair of great horned owls that live in the park. Crim has also seen several of the park’s mammals, including a coyote that he “almost stepped on” in February.
“I’ve learned there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye,” he said. “There are wide varieties of birds there and usually all you have to do is slow down and stop near the water, sit quietly and they’ll come.”
Aside from the wildlife, Crim said he was also struck by the number of memorials that are placed throughout the park, rattling off several that he wasn’t aware of before he photographed them. He’s also been quite taken with the two golf courses and the golfers using them, although he noted that it’s hard to explore the courses as much as he’d like, due to safety regulations.
Whatever he shoots, Crim rarely plans it out ahead of time. “It’s very serendipitous. I’ll just show up and see what’s going on,” he said, noting that there’s no single source for what’s going on in the park at any given time. “I might show up at the park and see that Fontbonne is having an event by the Muny, Twilight Tuesdays are going on at the History Museum and there’s something else happening at the Visitor Center.”
“I have been stumped. When you’ve been at something for 260 days, how do you show it differently? How do you show the passage of time? Sometimes I think ‘what on earth am I going to take a picture of?’ But no subject is inherently boring. You’re just not seeing it in an interesting way,” he said, noting that the point of the yearlong exercise is to challenge himself as a photographer.
When the project ends this December, Crim would like to create a book of his year in Forest Park, an idea that he said came from several people he’s encountered over the course of the project. He said he also plans on creating new projects, and continuing to tick off buildings on his list of state capitols.
[ back ]
