Darren Samuelson, of San Francisco, is on a cross country journey that began in New Orleans on Monday, May 23, to use a his homemade view camera that uses 14 inch by 36 inch X-ray film to take pictures of landmarks in cites around the country. Samuelson, who is traveling with his father Gene Samuelson, plans to take pictures with the camera he nicknamed "The Beast" in Alabama; Atlanta; North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; New York City; Boston and Chicago. The final images will likely be incorporated into his art show in San Francisco in August. Samuelson is also blogging about his trip at http://darrensgreatbigcamera.com/. Samuelson has spent hundreds of hours on the camera he said he built in part because he believes certain artistic and image qualities are lost with advances in technology. For example the amount of information in the approximately 14" X 36.25" image (508 square inches) is approximately 338 times more information than a standard 35mm negative (1.5 square inches). On Wednesday, May 25, 2011, Samuelson made photographs from the Algiers Mississippi River Levee looking towards New Orleans skyline with the Mississippi River at the flood stage height of 17 feet.
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