[May 21, 2006] This coming June, at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine, California, six photographic artists are poised to embark on a unique photographic project to create the world’s largest camera which will then be used to produce the world’s largest photograph. These six artists are members of The Legacy Project, which has been documenting the transformation of the military air base into The Great Park of Orange County since 2002.

The Guinness Book of World Records has confirmed that the giant camera and 2,500-square-foot photograph warrants consideration as a new world record. The rigorous certification process is already underway and should be confirmed upon completion.

This record-setting effort brims with challenges in turning a giant aircraft hangar into the world’s largest Pinhole Camera and utilizing it to produce the largest single photograph ever made on a single light sensitized surface. The purpose of this undertaking is to both celebrate the past while commemorating the beginning transition of MCAS El Toro into Heritage Fields, and the Orange County Great Park. In an era when miniature cameras, digital photography and instant results prevail, this process will require a minimum of three months to complete; requiring a 10 to 14 day exposure directly onto a 25’ high by 100’ long piece of specially created light-sensitive fabric as a one-of-a-kind photographic print. The resulting photograph will feature the former air control tower, the runways, and the open expanse that will become the heart of the Orange County Great Park. The coastal hills and the buildings surrounding the Irvine Spectrum will frame the view as a distant backdrop.

The process of making this camera and photograph will, itself, be of historical significance, and has the potential to generate tremendous regional, national, and international attention. The project employs the principles of the first cameras at a vastly enlarged scale. The Camera Obscura (Latin for “dark room”) has been known for several thousand years—long before light sensitive materials and glass lenses were discovered. It is, in fact, the original design from which all cameras have evolved. During the Renaissance, camera obscuras, employing pinholes for lenses were used to help draw more accurate images with correct perspective. The notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci include sketches of two such camera obscuras. When light is controlled through a pinhole (or lens) as it enters a darkened chamber, an inverted image of what is outside appears on the opposite wall where it may be drawn on paper or captured by light-sensitive materials such as film. The Legacy Project is dramatically expanding this concept by turning an actual airplane hangar into a gigantic camera obscura.

This mammoth event is part of a fifteen-year documentation known as The Legacy Project, a non-profit project started by six regional photographers, which, since they started in April 2002, have made over 80,000 images of the shuttered Marine Air Station. Now, on the eve of MCAS El Toro’s transition into the first major metropolitan park of the 21st Century, the six founders of The Legacy Project are undertaking this historically unique and fitting testament to the growth and dramatic changes occurring as we make our way into another millennium.

Support the Great Picture Project
Limited Edition Print Available at Special Pre-Sale Price

A special limited edition commemorative photograph of The Great Picture is being created by The Legacy Project to help finance this extraordinary event. The edition is limited to twenty 30” x 50” framed prints, which will be available for $1600 each before the event. The price will increase to $2,600 after July 4, 2006. The special edition print will be a composite image that shows both a negative and a positive version of The Great Picture. Each piece will be custom printed with Ultrachrome inks on archival paper and will be signed and numbered by all six artists from The Legacy Project.

The Legacy Project photographers, all well known photographic artists, are: Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada. The project is being produced with the support of the Orange County Great Park Corporation, Lennar Corporation, the City of Irvine, and the Great Park Conservancy.

For more information on this project and The Great Picture contact Rob Johnson at (714)870-9383, (email robluisa@earthlink.net) or ,Jerry Burchfield at (714) 731-1189 or BC Space Gallery at (949) 497-1880. To learn more about The Legacy Project, visit the web site (below).

Reported elsewhere:
L.A. Times
Toronto Star (AP News Article)

Related Website