'It's not like a field camera; it's more like a precision
instrument," says Graham Flint. Flint, an aerospace physicist
and photographer, started the Gigapxl Project with his wife,
Catherine Aves, in 2000 to create "an ultra-high-resolution
portrait of America." A handful of almost 800 images completed
to date -- depicting landmarks and cityscapes throughout the
United States and Canada -- will be on display at the Museum of
Photographic Arts beginning June 12. A gigapixel image is a
photograph consisting of one billion pixels (a pixel is a single
dot of color in the final photograph). To create clear
photographs up to 22 feet long and nearly 4 feet high, Flint had
to build his own camera. In an image taken of San Diego's city
skyline from Coronado, clear shapes inside the rooms of office
buildings can be seen despite the fact that the photograph was
taken from over a mile away. "The lens is the key element," says
Flint. After analyzing and dismissing commercial lenses, Flint
enlisted the help of long-time co