Big Shot 1999 aims at the Intrepid, the Big Apple's favorite aircraft carrier

RIT photography projects are always singularly imaginative, but none have had the scope of this year's Big Shot: The annual painting-with-light project takes to the New York State Thruway on Thursday, Oct. 28, and heads for Manhattan and the Intrepid.

Though many of the previous 13 Big Shots captured expansive subjects (Remember Mount Hope Cemetery and Silver Stadium?), none of the projects have been as ambitious as this 900-foot-long, Essex-class aircraft carrier. Project coordinators Michael Peres and William DuBois, professors in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, expect that it will take no fewer than 2,000 people holding hand-held flashes and other light sources to illuminate the ship, docked at Pier 86.

Now a sea, space and air museum, the Intrepid survived torpedo and kamikaze attacks during World War II and served America as a primary recovery vessel for NASA's Mercury and Gemini space missions.

Make plans now to shed some light on the Intrepid in October and take part in Big Shot 1999. An alumni reception will follow the shoot. For more information, call Alumni Relations, 716-475-2586, or e-mail ritalum@rit.edu.