Almudena Romero creates world's largest photograph in a field near Toulouse

Almudena Romero, an Anglo-Spanish photographer born in 1986, has created the largest photographic work ever made, spanning 11,000 square meters in a field near Toulouse, France. Titled 'Farming Photographs,' the piece is visible from the air and uses an anthotype process, a 19th-century natural photographic technique that relies on plant pigments sensitive to sunlight. Romero collaborated with INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment) to plant wheat and winter grasses in a pattern forming a giant human eye composed of traits from different races, genders, and ages. The image was divided into 1,350 pixels, each corresponding to a plot of about 1.83 by 4.5 meters—the minimum size dictated by tractor wheel spacing. Different plant varieties with varying shades of green and brown were assigned to each plot, and seed density controlled tonal variation. The work emerges in spring, becomes visible between May and June, and transforms until harvest, after which it becomes edible flour. Romero's previous series, 'The Act of Producing' and 'Family Album,' explored growing images in cress using photosynthesis, with each plant functioning as a pixel. The project faced challenges from an unusually wet winter, highlighting agriculture's vulnerability to climate conditions. Romero views photography as something generated with living matter, not imposed upon it.