el toro – Photon Detector

The following is a brief interview with Robert Johnson regarding "The Great Picture" project [blogged previously]. The Great Picture project is part of a larger, on-going project to document the closed El Toro Marine Corp Air Station. Project members include photographers Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh, and Clayton Spada.

PV: How did the idea originate to turn a hangar at El Toro Air Station into a pinhole camera?

RJ: One of our group members (Clayton Spada) has been working/teaching in China. As part of some of the student’s projects there, they were experimenting with making large (roughly 8’X12′) pinhole images…

Read interview at Pinhole Visions

Sometime in June, a team of photographers in southern California plans to transform an abandoned airplane hangar into a giant pinhole camera, expose a huge piece of light-sensitive cloth, and create what may be the world’s largest photograph.

The project is difficult and expensive, and if it succeeds, the result will be a single black-and-white image of an empty runway. So why do it?

To the six photographers involved, Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, Douglas McCulloh and Clayton Spada, the undertaking is part of something bigger than just a really huge picture…

Continue reading at Photo District News

Check out the official project site

Via photographer Jan Kapoor

Tag: el toro

Pinhole Visions interview: Robert Johnson and Great Picture Project

A hangar, a pinhole and a world record: building the world’s biggest camera