- [Narrator] National presentation of the R.I.T Big Shot Painting With Light has been made possible by Rowe Photo, Video & Audio in Rochester, New York.

(gentle acoustic music) - Welcome to our 26th R.I.T Big Shot project and- (crowd cheering) Pretty hard to believe, 1987.

So we have a complicated lighting plan that we wanna produce tonight.

And you all are hopefully you gonna make that plan come to life.

(gentle acoustic music) (indistinct chatter) - We're lighting up the air, that's our job.

We're lighting up the air.

- It's so much fun, this is a lot of fun.

It's a very, you know, it's still part of the community and something to do on a Thursday night.

You know, and be part of this event from R.I.T and enjoy it.

- The Big Shot is a painting in light experience.

It's an opportunity to come out and create a long exposure photograph using nothing but handheld light.

Flashes, flashlights, whatever people get their hands on that creates just a beautiful image.

- I mean, the magnitude of it is fantastic.

I mean, there's I don't know how many people, hundreds and hundreds of people here.

So, I mean, it's quite a huge event and obviously because of the photo community and Rochester being the imaging center that you see it published all over the place.

You know, it's picked up in journals.

And so it's really quite amazing and it's really nice to bring the whole cultural community together for an event such as this.

- [Woman] Keep your light moving.

We are painting with light, that's what this is.

- The Big Shot started as an educational experience to help students in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences really understand how to use flash for lighting a very large subject.

But then very quickly thereafter, since we did a second and a third one of these, and now we're up to 26.

It has turned into a community-based opportunity for not only education, but having some fun in lighting a very large subject in Rochester or someplace around the world.

We started in 1987, Michael Peres, a new hire faculty member in the School of Photography, came into my office and said, "Bill, let's talk a little bit "about how can we really get students excited "about using flash and teaching flash effectively."

- I'd never taught in my life I was a medical photographer.

I was tired, It's an exhausting job.

You're constantly thinking about ways to inspire people to do homework.

- We then went into a concept that actually had started with the Sylvania Corporation back in the 1950s.

They started using the term big shot to describe an area of a city or a structure that they would wire with flashbulbs and invite the community to bring their cameras out.

And they would set off all the flashbulbs on a particular moment.

- Our pictures are long exposure pictures.

And what that means is that we're gonna expose the sensor or in the former world film, to light over a period of time.

We've had as few as 37 people, we've had over a thousand people at the event.

So they all have light, photons.

Photons everywhere.

So these photons strike the object and they reflect back.

We paint with light.

We have a single vantage point for the scene.

We assign people and then on command, the people make the photograph.

They're the light sources otherwise at night, you'd see just blackness.

- This idea that you could have a camera and open the shutter and then somehow use a light sources to paint an image, to really build an image over time, it has a tremendous attraction to anybody who really loves photography because it's sort of the quintessential illustration of what photography is all about.

- R.I.T Big Shot number one was this enormous mystery.

What the heck was gonna happen?

- So we decided, let's try one of the smaller hospitals and see if we can get permission to turn out all of the exterior lights and to bring every student down there with their flash unit to light the exterior of that building.

- And Dawn kinda got recruited to the event because we needed a photographer.

Bill and I felt like we needed to stage the event and she was an architectural photographer.

- So, I kind of, I guess by default, became the photographer for that first event.

- And we were just, okay, everybody, it's nine o'clock, we got permission.

The lights go off and then we started screaming at the kids, "Start lighting, start lighting.

Don't move, keep moving."

(chuckles) You're almost like contradicting yourself.

You tell them to stop, then move, move your light, don't move your light.

- We had the Head of Scientific Imaging at Eastman Kodak company, Mr. Martin Scott, come out and join us that evening.

And he decided for the fun of it, he too would bring a flash, but it was actually antique flash powder that he put into the small tray that the flash photographers used back in the day and put in a little bit of powder.

And then at the appropriate time, he set this off with a large spark and a big boom.

And so when students gathered around Martin again to load the flash tray, they said, "More powder, more powder.

We need a bigger boom."

- He didn't know that moisture, and it was snowing, in combination with magnesium powder causes explosions but no light.

So we had like this sonic boom, this massive smoke.

(chuckles) And his whole down jacket melted from the heat.

So we had our very first Big Shot expense was to replace his down winter coat.

We leave with four pieces of film and it's like, "Oh my God.

What just happened?

"Is there any exposure on that film?"

- After we were finished with the actual photograph we all went to Michael's house, where Michael and Bill and I ran immediately down to the dark room.

- Soon as it came into the fixer you turn on their room lights just immediately even though you should wait.

It's like, "Turn on the lights."

And we had an exposure.

(gentle acoustic music) It's like your first sweetheart, it's like, "Wow, this worked."

- It was such a new learning experience and I think the fact that it worked was just awe inspiring to me.

(gentle acoustic music) - After the first picture, it became apparent the students had such a good time.

I mean, they were talking about it for weeks.

- They were so excited, they said, "What can we do next year?"

And in fact, they wanted to do more that particular academic quarter.

- Channel 13 came, one of the kids said, "This is gonna become an annual event."

- It's gonna be annual event from now on, it's very fun.

I think we all enjoyed it, didn't we?

(crowd cheering) Yeah, all right.

Woo!

- [Michael] He had a better premonition of where this was going than Bill and I.

(gentle acoustic music) - One of the things that Michael and I always joke about is the fact that well, there are the three of us.

Now, two of us are married, but the tendency has always been that Michael and I will vote two to one against Bill.

And then, so we always seem to be able to override some of Bill's wackier thoughts or suggestions as to where the next Big Shot will be.

- So once we get the permission, we have to pick a vantage point.

'Cause you know, we don't know exactly.

We just know the subject's interesting but where to photograph, it becomes sort of vital.

- We typically will take our daytime image and then as we get closer to the actual event, Bill, Michael and I will walk the site at night with a photograph and document each area that we feel we will need a lighting team and approximately how many.

- The lighting plan is a best guess because if it rains, people don't show up or if it snows, there might be less people that show up.

Or if it's a pristine evening, we could get a huge crowd.

If you took a picture with flashlights and it was snowing, you'd see the flakes but because the exposure runs for 20 seconds, 30 seconds a minute, things like that just disappear.

In fact, many of the earliest pictures, there's people in them but they're never visible because they moved during the course of the time when the shutter was open and when the shutter was closed.

- The very first picture that had a human that was recognizable was 'cause he was having his shoe shined in the foreground.

Only because he was fixed in space while this kind of panoramic view was made.

So, we strategically locate people in our pictures and we tell them sometimes to just keep moving so that they become either completely invisible or they become sort of a gray density.

(gentle piano music) The R.I.T Big Shot of Mt.

Hope Cemetery, that's the very first picture where we really lit space.

I mean, the cemetery had eight acre vantage point and so there's tons of trees, thousands of little things.

Well, the morning when we did our pre-shot, the ground is frozen but it's dry.

It's like, "Oh, let's go up here.

"This is a perfect place."

You can see the valley and it's like an awesome vantage point.

See all these mausoleums in the foreground, it's just perfect.

Well, don't you think it's snowed that night?

- It had snowed and snowed and then it had thawed, and then it had snowed some more.

So there was like a thick pack of ice underneath this hill.

- And I'm thinking to myself, I mean our hill was like this.

It was perfect when it was dry and scalable.

I'm thinking about Bill and Dawn on this kind of an incline with large format cameras on tripods and them just kind of doing (buzzes) So I ran out and I got rope.

I said, "We're gonna tie you guys to trees."

- Michael ended up going out and buying a rope that we now carry on every single Big Shot project.

No matter where it is the rope is there.

- This is, I would have to say, this is my personal favorite Big Shot because Mount hope cemetery is a place where I've explored for all the time I've lived in Rochester.

And this particular part of Mt.

Hope is a very ancient part.

Where there are many, many of the oldest grave sites.

The topography of this area is very dramatic.

It's almost too steep to climb some of the slopes in there.

It evokes Mount hope in the way that I think of Mount hope.

When I actually think of Mt.

Hope I think I see that picture as opposed to my own mental images of Mt.

Hope.

- Photography tells stories from decades and centuries ago.

Silver Stadium is now not here anymore but we have a photograph of it.

And we have reenactors in it with historical baseball uniforms from the thirties.

So, the picture is sort of a legacy that we've created without sort of thinking, "Oh boy, let's make a legacy photo project."

That that was not the intention, but by continuing on, boy, it's just turned into all these for all these people.

(gentle acoustic music) - We had one of our students who lived in New York city, came to me and he said, "Bill, I think I have the concept for the next Big Shot."

He says, "Well, I think we should go to New York City "and photograph the Intrepid aircraft carrier "because it's sitting in the Harbor "And we could get a really nice vantage point "and photograph that ship.

"It has airplanes and helicopters "and everything all over the deck.

"And we could put people in the aircraft and on the deck, "lighting it and then put people on the piers around it."

Once I saw it, I said, "No, we're not ready."

And Michael and Dawn and I all agreed we're not ready for that particular shot.

But seven years later we were.

(gentle music) - My name is Hector Janeshka.

I live in New Rochelle and I was a former crew of this ship at 1943 to 1945.

In fact, believe it or not, this was the most hip carrier in World War Two that survived.

(gentle music) - Got a flash, flashlight?

Got a flashlight?

- One pop ought to do it.

Get underneath it, pop again, work your way through it.

- [Man] Five, four, three, two, one.

Lens open.

- Aircraft, start flashing.

Aircraft, start flashing.

- Seven, six, five, four.

- Three, two, one.

Shutters closed.

(crowd cheering) - All right.

Oh, man.

It's the big time now.

(gentle music) - It's one of those projects if you get to do one, that's great.

You know, multiple times is an honor.

The first Big Shot I attended was the George Eastman House.

And then they'd done a couple of them on campus while I was still a student there.

And then there was a huge gap from 1991 through 2001 that I had not been to a Big Shot.

I went to an alumni gathering with President Simone in Austin.

They had just come off of the Intrepid, it was on the cover of the alumni magazine.

And during the conversation, I said, "Well, have you done anything outside of New York?

And he told me a story about how he wanted to do Mount Fuji.

I said, "Well, how about a little smaller?

"Why don't we start with the Alamo?"

"Wouldn't it be great if we do an Alamo Big Shot?"

And he goes, "Yeah, that's a great idea."

Then the conversation just went on.

And you know, after that, I kind of put it out of my mind.

Until I got a letter from him in the mail saying it was an interesting idea.

And then got a call from Michael.

- This is the first time that we've been out of New York state to do one of these projects.

So, we're delighted to be here.

We need everybody's help to make this picture happen.

- When we had over a thousand people show up, and we actually had to shorten the exposure of the photograph because there was so much light.

It was overwhelming.

And everyone there was so helpful and so into the project and probably 99% of the people had no affiliation with R.I.T whatsoever.

San Antonio is a family-oriented city that there were all these families who brought their children.

And the schools were all notified and a lot of kids were there and it really gave it that sense of a family event.

Which was really special because that lent itself to the culture of San Antonio.

And one thing that was really special, the mayor proclaimed it Alamo Big Shot Day.

- I Howard W. Peak, mayor of the city of San Antonio in recognition thereof, do hereby proclaim March 10th to be R.I.T's Big Shot Day in San Antonio.

- And it took the whole Big Shot from being a New York state project to a national project, to where after that it went international.

So, I think it was a real turning point for the Big Shot.

(gentle music) - [Michael] Here we are in Stockholm Harbor.

So what's your reaction to that, baby?

- Hey, now this is a big building.

- [Michael] It is big.

- We're gonna light the whole thing.

(hooves clicking) - [Michael] Do you think they did this for the Big Shot?

- That's for you.

- [Michael] I don't think so.

(laughter) It's a very big scene.

(upbeat music) - [Michael] The very first time we attempted to do digital was the Sweden project that we had a digital camera there concurrently with large format film.

Each year from that point from 2003 forward, there's always been the sort of intervention of the digital.

As I recall, by the time we got to Dubrovnik to do the Pile Gate, we took film, we exposed film and digital, but we never developed film.

So in that four year period from Stockholm to Dubrovnik it became apparent that the tools were sophisticated and good enough that no one would know.

- I miss using film terribly.

Bill and I still have a dark room in our basement that's ready to be used at any moment, but I have not used the dark room for about four years.

- Do I miss film?

No, no.

I'm ready to deal with digital all the way.

- You'd be really hard pressed to separate the two technologies and the ability to distribute our work now worldwide in milliseconds after the event is over has given us a whole new voice.

- The Big Shot that stands out among the rest in my mind is the experience that we had in Croatia.

The city really responded and the city is a very small place.

The walled city is inside the larger city of Dubrovnik.

And the walled city responded marvelously.

When we asked for all lighting to be turned off in the city, it was.

So we had the city looking like it would have in its medieval day.

Every light was off.

And every light you see in that photograph was provided by someone volunteering to work with us to make it happen.

Just a marvelous experience.

(upbeat music) - In 2009, the Big Shot was in Washington at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

It's a gorgeous building.

And it was raining like it, you know, a torrential downpour.

- And it rained, I think, two inches of rain in four hours.

It was just ridiculous.

You know, we had rivers running down the front of our wide angle lenses.

We had to like, hold like umbrella.

'Cause it was just the driving sideways rain but people stayed.

- It was something you would never forget because the quality of the light when the air is so filled with water and there's so much rain coming down.

Every time a flash went off, it would illuminate all the water around too.

So that the effect was just ethereal, very beautiful.

Something you'd never ever forget.

(gentle music) - To be put in that company with the Alamo and the USS Intrepid and the Royal Palace in Sweden.

We were excited to take that phone call.

I'd have to say we're probably the only Big Shot project that had to be worried about the roosting habits of butterflies.

I really have to say it's a true Testament to the Big Shot team.

This was their 26th project and Michael Peres calls it Big Shot magic.

And it's true, everything comes together.

They are very well organized but not without a lot of planning effort.

- But it seemed like that was the only place we could've been, it was the right place to be.

It was the right point in the history of that institution.

The weather, everything was perfect for that particular Big Shot.

And so I think there's a little bit of providence in this whole thing.

At the end of the last exposure, when you heard "We've got it, folks."

There was such a cheer and it just gave me shivers.

(crowd cheers) (Dawn clapping) - [Dawn] Call Michael, tell him it worked.

(gentle music) - You know, it's amazing when people look at a Big Shot, if they were at the Big Shot, they know exactly where they were.

They almost know what light they applied and they always remember that.

And I think that that's really what it captures.

It captures the work of a lot of people together and forever captures that work.

- The Big Shot has had a major impact on my life.

I think the experience of working with students has been key.

The fact that they buy into it, the fact that they love it.

It's working with the kids.

- When you bring a group of students out to learn flash and you create something that's totally unique to people who were freshmen last year that participated, they're now sophomores.

And they're talking without the students there providing that energy source.

I don't think the Big Shot would still be prospering and growing like it is.

- It's magic.

Just each phase of what's happened was never expected.

These lucky accidents, these just kind of random events that somehow came from just this idea.

One person can make a difference and one person working with other people can make an enormous difference.

And if you believe in something and you enjoy it enough to keep going with it it can turn into something nobody could have ever imagined.

(gentle acoustic music)