大象传媒

Between January and June 2008, The Big Picture project has seen over 110,000 photos submitted from across the West Midlands and uploaded onto the online gallery.

The pictures will be used to create a huge, record-breaking photo mosaic, the size of three tennis courts, to be unveiled at Birmingham's Thinktank at Millennium Point on Saturday 23 August.

The mosaic will be used to create the image of one of the thousands of photos sent in by the public, but the special picture will be kept under wraps until the big day!

Project manager for The Big Picture, Kerry Endsor, was delighted with the huge number of entries: "The response that we have received from people across the region has been fantastic.

"The photos have come flooding in - online, through the post, and by e-mail and text message - and the online gallery really shows a unique portrait of the lives and loves of those of us in the West Midlands."

Flooded Ironbridge by Steve Green

Artist Helen Marshall will oversee the physical production and creative direction of the final mosaic. Helen has invaluable experience of working on large scale photo mosaics, including a mosaic of over 3,000 photos for the British Legion.

"We are really excited to have Helen on board, and we feel that the combination of her artistic vision, experience and unfailing enthusiasm for the project means that the West Midlands stands in a very strong position to hold a new world record this summer," revealed Kerry Endsor.

A portrait of the West Midlands

The project received the most photos from Birmingham, closely followed by keen snappers in the Black Country. Dave Chesters from Stoke was the keenest photographer, submitting over 5,000 images to the project.

The most photographed place within the West Midlands was Ironbridge in Shropshire, and the fantastic scenery of the Shropshire Hills also proved a real hit.

The most photographed activities include holidays and sport.听But perhaps a big indicator of where people chose to take part in the project was that there were four times as many photos tagged 'work' than 'home'. Pets were also a common subject area, with cats appearing in twice as many photos as dogs.

You can still get involved with The Big Picture team by volunteering to help create the final record-breaking mosaic.