Posted on 06/15/2006 7:07:54 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - Walk into the massive air hangar and the first thing you notice is an oppressive darkness broken only by a tiny beam of light from a gumball-size hole in the wall.
Then, slowly, an upside-down image emerges on the opposite wall that is startling in its clarity - a dilapidated air traffic control tower, an overgrown runway and palm trees clustered amid rolling hills.
Once home to roaring fighter jets, this decommissioned Marine Corps hangar is now the world's largest camera poised to take the world's largest picture.
Associated Press An image similar to this of the former El Toro Marine Air Corps Station in Irvine, Calif., will be made with a hangar-turned-pinhole camera that is poised to take the world's largest picture.
If all goes well, within days the hangar-turned-camera will record a panoramic image of what's on the other side of the door using the centuries-old principle of "camera obscura."
An image of the former El Toro Marine Air Corps Station will appear upside down and flipped left-to-right on a sheath of light-sensitive fabric after being projected through the tiny hole in the hangar's metal door. The fabric is the length of one-third of a football field and about 3 stories tall.
The Guinness Book of World Records has created two new categories for the project - world's largest camera and world's largest photograph - and will certify the records once the photo is complete.
"This project is about being deep inside photography, in the sense that you can walk inside the camera. It's the origins of photography and we've been living in it for weeks at a time," said Doug McCulloh, a photographer for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
On Wednesday, the six photographers with the nonprofit Legacy Project were to begin testing their massive camera and hope to have a photograph completed within two weeks.
The ambitious project is the latest by photographers who want to capture the Marine base before it's gone and document the transition of a nearly 5,000-acre chunk of land that's an important part of the region's history.
The base was decommissioned in 1999 after more than a half-century of use.
The photographers are using a nearly 33-by-111 foot piece of white fabric covered in 20 gallons of light-sensitive emulsion as the photographic "negative."
After exposing the fabric for up to 10 days, they will develop it in a huge tub made of pool siding, using 200 gallons of black-and-white developer solution and 600 gallons of fixer.
Black and white? I'm waiting for the Kodachrome....
You just know somebody'll get their thumb in the shot.
Michael Moore?
Michael Moore needed a passport photo?
Feel the 'quake this morning?
I think I will go down there and keep walking back a nd forth to get in the shot
No, but Mrs. F. did.
I heard the walls shake a bit.
Felt like a 2.5 / 3
Walking back and forth wont even leave a blur in this one. You must go there and stand without moving for a few days.
4.2 in Morgan Hill. Made Drudge.
It must really be a slow news day...
About ten days....
Hope they can hold the camera still for that long.
Next, maybe they'd care to break the world record for the longest "call" made on a wire stretched between two tin cans.
My first guess -- you're making an F-stop joke.
My second guess -- you're making a sex joke.
My third guess -- you guys are actually talking about an earthquake.
I have a good laser level would that work my cat loves it
Third time's the charm.
Dang - someone blinked!
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