The Great Picture

As of 2007, The Great Picture holds the Guinness World Record for the largest print picture, and the camera with which it was made holds a record for being the largest.[1] The picture was taken in 2006 as part of the Legacy Project, a photographic compilation and record of the airfield's history before it is transformed into the Orange County Great Park. The project used the abandoned F-18 hangar #115 at the closed Marine Corps Air Station El Toro fighter base in Irvine, California as the world's largest pinhole camera. The aim was to make a black-and-white negative print of the Marine Corps air station with its control tower and runways, with the San Joaquin Hills in the background. The purpose was to mark the end of 165 years of film/chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography. The picture was unveiled on July 12, 2006 during a reception held in the hangar and exhibited for the first time at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, on September 6, 2007.[2]

Contents

Construction of the pinhole camera

Six photographer artists, Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh and Clayton Spada and around 400 assistants built the world's largest pinhole camera in building #115 at El Toro using 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of 2-inch (5.1 cm) wide black Gorilla Tape and 40 US gallons (150 l) of black spray paint to make the hangar light-tight.

A seamless piece of muslin cloth was made light sensitive by coating it with 21 US gallons (80 l) of gelatin silver halide and then hung from the ceiling at a distance of about 80 feet (24 m) from a pinhole, just under 6 millimetres (0.24 in) in diameter and situated 15 feet (4.6 m) above ground level on the hangar's metal door. The distance between the pinhole and the cloth was determined to be 80 feet (24 m) for best coverage, and the exposure time was calculated at 35 minutes.[3]

Development

The hangar-turned-camera recorded a panoramic image of what was on the other side of the door using the centuries-old principle of "camera obscura" or pinhole camera. An image of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station appeared upside down and flipped left to right on film after being projected through the tiny hole in the hangar's metal door.

The opaque negative image print was developed by 80 volunteers during five hours in a vinyl pool liner custom tray the size of an Olympic swimming pool with 600 US gallons (2,300 l) of traditional developer and 1,200 US gallons (4,500 l) of fixer pumped into the tray using high volume pumps. The photograph was then washed using fire hoses attached to two fire hydrants. The finished print is 111 feet (34 m) wide and 32 feet (9.8 m) high with an area of 3,505.75 square-foot (325.44 m²).[4]

Exhibitions

The Great Picture has been exhibited in the following venues:

See also

Photography portal

References

Further reading

External links