Jumbo camera...

Many thanks to Frere Pigatschmo for bringing this story to my attention...

As you read this, the world's largest photograph is being taken by the world's largest camera. The Legacy Project, a group of experimental photographers in Irvine, CA is using an abandoned military airplane hangar as a light tight box, or camera, that will capture an image of the surrounding airfield on a 33 by 111 foot piece of material soaked in 20 gallons of light sensitive emulsion. This is pinhole photography writ large, a phenomena often exemplified at various walk-in camera obscuras around the world. (There's a nice one in Santa Monica).

For those of you from the area, no, they're not using the famous blimp hangars in Tustin, those are REALLY big. The place in question is the nearby El Toro Marine Air Corps Station, a base slated to be leveled later this year and bulldozed into a development that will include a 375-acre park, museum district, sport complex and thousands of suburban homes.

The exposure time for the image is a whopping ten days. From there the massive fabric sheet will be soaked in a specially made tub, first with 200 gallons of black and white developer, then with 600 gallons of fixer. Once the project is complete, the hangar will be torn down making it, effectively, the world's largest disposable camera. What will happen to the photo is anyone's guess... Once the Guiness Book is through verifying the snaps record breaking dimensions, perhaps you might step in with the world's largest photo album?

See the photoshoot slideshow here. And if giant cameras are your thing, here's a guy who wants to build a mega pinhole camera in space.