What you see here is the Mammoth camera, invented by George R. Lawrence (1868-1938), who is also in the photo, standing to the right of the lens.

In 1899 he was asked to take a detailed and impressive photo of the Alton Limited Train, an amazing train that offered the kind of luxury travel we can hardly imagine today.

The train was long, as it had 8 carriages, and using a regular old camera from a distance would not do it justice. Lawrence built this special camera for it within two months, weighing up to 635 kg. After two and a half minutes of exposure the photo was taken, the result was amazing, a 244 cm wide photo that showed the train in perfect detail.