Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-12-25
GIANT PHOTOGRAPH
SHOWS HUGE TRACT
Of LAKE SHORE LINE
Chicago Curator Completing
Picture So Feet Long and
10 Feet High.

Chicage.-(Correspondence of The
Associated Press. "A photograph 96
feet long and ten feet high, one of the
largest ever made, has been completed
By DR.. Frank NJ. Woodruff, curator Of
the Chicago Academy Of Sciences. In
Lincoln park.
lt shows q panorama of the Lake
Michigan shore at Miller Beach, near
Gary, Ind, the famous Indiana sand
dunes, he sluggish Grand Calumet
river. and the swamps and swale
stretching around the eastern and
southern environs of Chicago. The
photograph is tinted in natural colors.
The picture is one of four immense
panorama photographs which when all
are complete, will form the back
grounds of exhibits showing the birds.
animals. reptiles, trees and flowers
common now or in earlier days in the
Chicago region.
A second picture, ~ feet long and
ten~feet high, has been completed, Il
two more, one 96 and the other Y
feet long, are to be made. 3.
Typical Scenery.
When complete the series will show
typical bits Of scenery from the sand
dune region, through the swamps to
the Calumet Sag, north through the
prairics, and back to the lake ONE
where above the north shore suburbs.
The photographs mark the advent of
n new art, and have displaced oil paint
ings costing thousands of dollars. A
picture 90 feet long can be produced,
according to DIR. Woodruff, for less
than 500, and the tinting in transpar-
ent oils costs but q small amount adj
titional. as compared with the heavy
cost of oil paintings.
Any art student who understands
color can do the tinting, he says, as
the photograph itself furnishes the
highlights and shadows.
Photographic backgrounds. according
TO government ornithologists who re-
Gently inspected the pictures during
the convention here of the American
Ornithoiogists Union. mark a mile
stone in museum displays. Unlike the
oil paintings formerly used. they are
exact in every detail. and the per
spective blends the background into the
foreground exhibit. and carries out the
Illusion of vast space.
Animals Added.
Birds. animals, trees of special shape
or anything else can be added to the
background. DIR. Woodruff found, by
charging their photographs to the
right size, cutting out the picture.
tinting it, and sticking it on with a
pin. Birds in flight. of the same
species shown among the stuffed fore
ground exhibits, are given the appear
ance of actual motion through space
because the pin suspends them in front
of the background, instead Of their
heiur n uajnted mart of it
In making the immense photographs
DIR. Woodruff. who took all the original
pictures himself. had to develop new
methods and special equipment. The
photographs are printed in 10 by II
foot sections. each section being the
enlargement of one eight by ten mega
tive. Developing papers in strips
eleven feet long and forty inches wide
are used. three strips being mounted on
The printing board at a time. To keep
all parts Of such a large printing board
in focus il was necessary to build il in
n curve corresponding to an arc of the
circle of which the charging camera
is the center.
To develop the huge prints an i'm
mense tray is mounted or wooden
horses and four extra fall men drag
the paper back and forth. while a boy
wearing rubber boots climbs into the
developer armed with n swab mounted
on a broomstick handle and assists
their efforts.
In addition to the four big pictures.
Or. Woodruff has completed 40 pho
tographs ten feet high and five feet
wide for smaller exhibit cases.