the great picture
today we went out to see the largest picture in the world in pasadena. meaning the largest picture in the world was in pasadena, not that we saw pasadena’s largest picture. which would have been unmotivating.
some facts:
The
Great Picture is a unique gelatin silver photographic image three stories high by eleven stories wide. The $65,000 photograph was made using a shuttered Southern California F-18 jet aircraft hangar transformed into a gigantic camera obscura—the largest camera ever made.
The photograph was created over the nine months leading up to July 2006 by six well-known photographic artists collectively known as The Legacy Project, aided by 400 volunteers, artists, and experts. Working in their jet-hangar-transformed-into-camera, the group hand-applied 80 liters of gelatin silver halide emulsion to a seamless 3,375-square-foot canvas substrate custom-made in Germany. Development was done in a custom Olympic pool-sized developing tray using ten high volume submersible pumps and 1,800 gallons of black and white chemistry.
The photograph shows the control tower, structures and runways at the heart of the shuttered 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Southern California, shut down in the base closings of the mid-1990s. Once home to U.S. Marine Corps air operations for the western United States and Pacific region (including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East), El Toro is now being turned into housing and one of the largest urban parks in the western United States.
Great Picture Facts
- Finished Size: 107'-5" x 31'-5"; 3,375 square feet.
- Photograph type: Black and white negative image with a gelatin sizing and a hand-coated gelatin silver emulsion.
- Subjects Depicted: The Marine Corps Air Station El Toro control tower, twin runways, and heart of the future Orange County Great Park, with a backdrop of the San Joaquin Hills and the Laguna Beach Wilderness.
- Camera: Building #115, an F-18 fighter plane hangar at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Irvine, California.
- Camera Size: 44’-2” feet high by 79’-6” feet deep by 161’-6” feet wide.
- Materials To Darken Hanger: 24,000 square feet of six mil black viscuine; 1,300 gallons foam gap filler; 1.52 miles of two-inch wide black gorilla tape; 40 cans of black spray paint.
- Fabric Substrate: Seamless unbleached muslin specially ordered from Germany and weighing 1,200 pounds rigged.
- Aperture Size: One-quarter inch (6mm) pinhole fifteen feet above ground level—no lens or other optics.
- Emulsion: 80 liters of Rockland Liquid Light—a gelatin silver black and white sensitizer hand-painted onto the fabric under safelight illumination. Emulsion applied on July 7, 2006.
- Exposure: 35 minutes beginning at 11:30 a.m. July 8, 2006
- Date of Development: July 8, 2006
- Developing Materials: 600 gallons traditional black-and-white developer and 1,200 gallons fixer delivered by ten high-volume submersible pumps.
- Developing Tray: Eight mil vinyl pool liner contained by a wooden sidewall—114 feet x 35 feet x 6 inches deep.
- Print Wash: Twin 4.5 inch fire hoses connected to a pair of hydrants tested at 750 gallons-per-minute.
as it was, the picture was, uh, a little underwhelming. it certainly was large, but somehow less majestic than you’d expect. perhaps it’s just the nature of camera obscura, or maybe the innate fuzziness combined with the uneven application of hand-painted emulsion on muslin that gives everything an unsatisfying murkiness.
it felt a little like going to the state fair, to see the WORLD’S LARGEST PUMPKIN! hmc explained that the magnificence really is about the process and not the end result: what they actually did to make and produce the great picture is really more impressive than the great picture itself.
unfortunately, what we really want is something that is both impressive to produce and is impressive afterwards. like the pyramids or the easter island statues.
snapper jones was likewise unimpressed, choosing to sleep through the whole thing. plus, to her, everything is already “the world’s largest”.
Posted at September 18, 2007 8:39 PM| TrackBack
