Photo Aims to Capture 2 Million Faces at Papal Mass

Authors Say It Will Be the World's Largest Picture

KRAKOW, Poland, AUG. 18, 2002 (Zenit.org).- More than 2 million people will appear in the largest photograph in the world, taken during today's papal Mass.

Five photographers using high-resolution cameras worked to compile the picture, in which they say pilgrims' faces will be recognizable.

Eight photographs were taken by five cameras from various points during the Mass. Together, they produced a panoramic photograph with a 280-degree angle.

In order to take the picture, the professionals were placed at a 7-meter-high (23 feet) vantage point, from which they were able to photograph the massive crowd gathered in Blonie Park.

The gigantic image was the idea of Gdansk photographers Slawomir Pultyn and Jerzy Rados, who announced that they will publish it in a poster 2 meters high and 26 meters wide.

The photograph will also be published in sections in a special album, which will soon be on sale. The photographers announced that all the funds collected from the album's sale will be donated to orphanages and homes for the elderly in Krakow.

«The photo is meant to be a testimony of our time, of the men and women who live in it - people of all professional and social conditions, gathered in a special and extraordinary moment,» Pultyn said.

The two photographers have already carried out similar enterprises, including a «family photo of the inhabitants of Gdansk at the end of the century.»

ZENIT - The World Seen from Rome
18. august 2002