MEMBERconnec tion
Getting the
picture
COSTCO MEMBER Jacques
Garnier, of Laguna Beach,
California, along with five other
artists, and 400 volunteers who
collectively call themselves The
Legacy Project, have created the
world’s largest photo.
The new Guinness World
Records–winning black-and-white photo, simply titled The
Great Picture, measures 13 feet 7
inches by 111 feet. It depicts the
control tower and twin runways
at the Marine Corps Air Station
in El Toro, California.
“We wanted to pay homage
to the past while looking toward
the future. El Toro has been a
large Marine base for the last
50 years. Soon, it will be turned
into housing and one of the
The Great Picture, the world’s largest pinhole photograph,
was taken inside the hangar shown above at El Toro, California.
largest urban parks in the western United States,” Garnier says.
The team converted an F- 18
fighter plane hangar that measures 45 feet by 160 feet by 80
feet into an enormous pinhole
camera, with a quarter-inch
“pinhole” 15 feet above ground
level. This ancient form of photography requires no shutter or
lens; instead, the pinhole is
uncovered, in this case for 35
minutes, to capture the image.
To create a piece of “film”
large enough to capture this
amazing image, they applied
more than 20 gallons of gelatin
silver halide emulsion to a
seamless 3,375-square-foot
piece of canvas that was cus-
tom-made in Germany. The
giant photo was developed in
a custom Olympic-pool-size
developing tray using 10 high-volume submersible pumps
and 1,800 gallons of developing chemicals. For details
about the photo, visit www.
legacyphotoproject.com.
—Will Fifield
© ROBERT JOHNSON/ THE LEGACY PROJEC T
Living life to the fullest
NOT MANY PEOPLE live to
celebrate their 100th birthday.
Even fewer do so just two
months after getting married.
But then, Harold Bentzien, a
Costco member in San Diego, is
not your average centenarian.
He still drives his car, still
plants a vegetable garden each
year and he’s still in the honeymoon phase of his marriage.
In May, Bentzien and
Madonna Marshall, 81, were
married at the Tierrasanta (an
area of San Diego) Seventh-Day
Adventist Church, where the
couple met.
Lisa Lind, Bentzien’s
granddaughter, says her grandfather and Marshall formed a
deep friendship after Bentzien’s
wife of 70 years succumbed
to cancer in 2005. Eventually
Bentzien turned to Marshall,
who went to the same church
and had been friends with
his wife.
“He said he was lonesome
sitting alone at church and
asked if I would sit with him,”
Marshall says. “I told him that
I would be honored.”
Little by little, the two
began spending more time
together. “He was just like
anyone when they’re falling in
COUR TES Y OF LISA LIND
Harold and Madonna Bentzien
celebrate his 100th birthday with
a Costco sheet cake.
Adam@Home by Brian Basset
SPECIAL TO THE CONNECTION. ADAM IS © BY BRIAN BASSET, UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
We want to
hear from you
IF YOU HAVE a note, photo
or story to share (it should
be about Costco or Costco
members in some way),
you can send it to “The
Member Connection,”
The Costco Connection,
P.O. Box 34088, Seattle,
WA 98124-1088, or e-mail
to connection@costco.
com with “The Member
Connection” in the subject
line. Submissions cannot be
acknowledged or returned.
love. He had a dreamy smile,
and acted … giddy,” Lind says.
“My grandfather says he
doesn’t really feel 100 years
old,” reports Lind. “He says it’s
just that he’s walking around
in an old body.”
In August, just before his
100th birthday party, Bentzien
visited the Mission Valley
Costco warehouse. “All the
food for the party came from
Costco,” Lind notes, adding
that the party was a huge success. “Grandpa felt flattered
that people from as far as
Georgia, Oregon, Minnesota
and Montana came to celebrate
his birthday.”—WF
