RIT's Big Shot captures Kodak Tower

Using multiple sources of light and taking long-exposure pictures, photographers organized by Rochester Institute of Technology have captured the public's imagination with their annual Big Shot photos.

For the past 29 years, a team of RIT photography faculty members has used this technique — called painting with lights — to create glowing night-time images of famous buildings and sites, be it Churchill Downs — home of the Kentucky Derby — the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, or the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden.

On Sunday, Big Shot took aim at Kodak Tower — all 19 stories of it — headquarters of the Eastman Kodak Co., 343 State St.

"Kodak has had a huge effect on photography. We are paying homage," said RIT photography professor Willie Osterman, who has been involved with Big Shot since its second year.

The project is led by RIT's School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Sunday's Big Shot was the 32nd. Several years have seen more than one of these photographic happenings.

City of Rochester engineers supervised the removing of light poles near the site earlier in the day. Street lights in the area were turned off shortly before the time Big Shot will be taken.

Two busloads of RIT volunteers, with flashlights or camera flash units, gathered around the tower. Alumni, staff and faculty are joined students.

Eight different cameras were used to take the photos for this Big Shot, and while one was a Nikon digital camera, the photographers also used cameras from the past.

Osterman shot with a View camera, which has a lens that forms an inverted image on a ground glass screen. The camera dates back to the late 1880s.

As a tribute to the past, a Ford Model T car and a 60-by-40-foot photograph print of George Eastman were on the plaza.

"This building stands as a symbol of the evolution of modern day photography," said Osterman

JGOODMAN@Gannett.com.