The Great Picture

The largest photograph ever taken is on display now through Sept. 29 at the Pasadena Art Center's South Campus.

The photo is three stories high and 11 stories wide and was produced in a F-18 jet hanger at the El Toro airport which was tranformed into an enormous camera obscura--the largest camera ever made.

photo from Pasadena Weekly Article: www.pasadenaweely.com

"We were making it up as we were going along," said Clayton Spade one of the six leading photographers working on the project at a lecture for The Great Picture on Sept. 20.

"We had experts...they sometimes were right but frequently were wrong," added another lead phtotographer, Mark Chamberlain.

"We said screw all that we'll just do it ourselves!" exclaimed photographer Douglas McCulloh, drawing a laugh from the audience.

The exhibit, is in the Art Centers Wind Tunnel with dim lighting that slowly brightens to reveal the massive landscape that is captured by The Great Picture. The goal is to recreate the experience that the photographers had while working inside the camera which was pitch black.

At the lecture and reception for The Great Picture on Sept. 20 all six photographers agreed that the 35 minute exposure time was a truely "zen-like" experience. For the last five minutes they all agreed to sit in silence, alone but together in the dark, in their gigantic camera hoping that all thier hard work would eventually develop.

And luckily it did. But not without hundred of volunteers and bussiness sponsors, 400 pounds of muslin imported from Germany, 600 gallons of black and white developer and 1,200 gallons of fixer for developing just to name a few.

But there's a lot more to the photo than "Wow that's big." The photo itself is a panoramic view of a portion of the Marine Air Corps Station El Toro which will soon become part of the Orange County Great Park, as was accomplished as part of the Legacy Project. The Legacy Project is a non-profit documentary project that is covering the tranformation of El Toro into of the nations largest metropolitan parks (the Orange County Great Park). Amidst all the political controversy on deciding what to do with El Toro, the photo really represents a turning point in Orange County history.

On a larger scale it's also a statement about the evolution of the photographic medium. In a world were you can shoot hundreds of digital images with a camera or even your cell phone these guys did the opposite and went all the way back to the camera obscura, which Da Vinci was sketching centuries ago.

"We had one photo to make," said Chamberlain, "and one chance to make it." Two Guinness Book world records later and I guess it's safe to say they did; they most definitly did.