To View - Make sure your eyes are about 3 feet from your computer screen and level with the photos. "Defocus" your eyes in a manner similar to day-dreaming. After a very short time you will begin to see "double" images. If you concentrate (but not "focus) on the overlapping images in the center of your view, you should be able to get them to merge into a single 3D image. If you have trouble, try picking out a specific object common to both photos.

(Remember, 10% of the population cannot see 3D at all, so don't worry if you think you're one of them; just enjoy them in 2D)

A Brief History of Stereo Photography

Stereotography, the use of two-dimensional drawings or photos to simulate a three-dimensional view, has its origins as far back as 1584, when Leonardo da Vinci first studied how humans perceive depth. How can we tell, he asked, which objects in any grouping are closer to us and which farther away? We make such judgments all the time: If I reach out my hand, can I take the magazine from the table, or is it too far away? Is that car in the distance approaching slowly enough that if I pull out of this driveway, it won't hit me?

The mechanism by which we see depth ("stereo") is quite simple: When our eyes focus on an object, and conversely, the right eye sees a bit more of the right side of the object. Our brain puts the two images together and informs us that what we're looking at has depth ----a third dimension----rather than just being flat like a piece of paper or a regular photograph.

The object of stereo photography is to fool the brain into thinking that the eyes are looking at a solid object when in fact they are only looking at two similar but flat photographs or slides, each one taken at a slightly different angle in relation to the viewer.

The first credited stereographer was Sir Charles Wheatstone, a multi-talented scientist who also invented a device for measuring electrical resistance, the "Wheatstone Bridge," as well as the concertina, and was co-inventor of the telegraph.

But the fellow who did most to popularize stereo throughout the world was the famous photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who is best known today for his photographic studies of people and animals in motion. One of his techniques was to set up a series of cameras at, for example, a racetrack, with strings attached to their shutters and stretched across the track. As a horse would run past the cameras, it would break the strings, tripping the shutters in sequence.

As an offshoot of his multi-camera experiments, Muybridge became an avid stereo photographer; since any two of his cameras aimed at the same stationary subject would produce the left and right halves of what is now known as a "stereo pair."

By 1850, "stereoviews" ---cards measuring roughly 3" by 6" and containing left and right halves of a stereo pair ---were "the dominant form of photography in the nineteenth century," according to historian Melody D. Davis, and were broadly used to document important events; everything from presidential inaugurations to the progress of floods.

The Keystone View Company was the most prolific producer of stereo cards, releasing hundreds of different sets of stereoviews containing several hundred thousand different images. However, it was not until 1898 when authored "The Stereoscope and Stereoscopic Photographs," a study of stereo photography and plans for a stereo card viewer which to this day is known as a "Holmes-type" viewer.

The public's interest in stereo faded as the Great Depression struck in 1929-'30. Davis sees this as a near-conspiracy by the "cult of single image," but certainly, the lack of money that could be dedicated to luxuries during this period in history must have played an enormous role. Still, during its 80-year reign, stereo photography was practiced by nearly every well-known photographer---many of their best-known works are simply one half of a stereoview---and most camera manufacturers---most notably, Kodak---produced stereo cameras for the general public. Several European companies also produced cameras.

Fast-forward 17 years to Chicago, Illinois, where the David White Company, hoping to revitalize America's interest in stereo, commissioned camera designer Seton Rochewite to create a relatively inexpensive stereo camera that could be easily mass-manufactured. Rochewite delivered the film cartridges to produce either negatives for stereo cards or, later, slides that could be mounted in special film-holders for hand viewing or projection. It is estimated that the David White Company manufactured, over the following decade, nearly 400,000 Realists, and today, it is the most easily located stereo ("3D") camera at used camera shows.

Several other camera manufacturers quickly got into the act as well, including Kodak, the newly formed Three-Dimension Company, and even the Revere Corporation, now much better known for its non-stick cookware---and stereo photography once again became a popular family pastime.

Hollywood was quick to notice this revived interest in 3D and began releasing stereo films to theaters, which were equipped with dual projectors to display high-gloss features like Kiss Me Kate, House of Wax and Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder --- as well as lower-budget sci-fi thrillers like Robot Monster, It Came from Outer Space and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One common misconception is that these early 3D movies were shown in "anaglyph" format; that is, where the audience had to wear special glasses with one red lens and one blue lens in order to see the movie in 3D. In fact, the movies were projected using a polarizing system to "decode" the 3D.

Not only were 3D movies popular but also stereo cameras themselves became quite a fad in Hollywood. Actor/director Harold Lloyd was an avid stereo enthusiast, having taken more than 200,000 stereo pairs in his lifetime. Lloyd was also president of the Hollywood Stereo Society, an early rival of the Southern California Stereo Club, which exists to this day. Other contemporary stereo enthusiasts included actors Glenn Ford, Edgar Bergen, Dick Powell, James Cagney, Doris Day, Art Linkletter, Ronald Reagan and even a war hero who'd attracted nationwide attention: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States.

But again, by the late '50s, stereo photography dipped in popularity and several thousand devotees spread across the world, who keep in contact through the Internet and regularly attend club meetings in most major cities, practice today. Stereo cameras can still be found at antique/used camera shows-unless you want to pony up the $2000 to $3500 for a new state-of-the-art model manufactured by the RBT company in Germany---and then wait 18 months while the company makes your camera almost from scratch!

This has been a brief overview of stereo photography and plenty of information has been left out. In fact, volumes have been written about just the View-Master Company, formed in 1939, which has undergone many changes of ownership but which still produces the eight-image reels with which just about every child is familiar. And then there's the continuing "experiment" in lenticular 3D, which has produced the Nimslo and, later, the Nishika 3D cameras, which take photos that, after processing, appear three-dimensional without the need for special glasses or a viewer of any type.

For more information, a search of the Internet for "stereoscopy" will produce a wealth of sites, including one of the National Stereoscopic Association (http://www.nsa-3d.org), the Southern California Stereo Club (http://home.earthlink.net/~campfire/index.html) and the University of California's stereo archive at Riverside (http://www.cmp.ucr.edu/).

In the meantime, enjoy the stereo pairs on VCA Interactive's DVD "Unreal"…and think 3D!
---Mark Kernes

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