A Restorer’s Journey
October 12, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

A Restorer’s Journey

Some­times you will get a glimpse of the indi­vid­ual his­to­ry of your trea­sure and know where it was stored, wether it was looked after or long for­got­ten, if the own­er was well sit­u­at­ed or not, etc. For me, these sto­ries are invalu­able. As a pas­sion­ate restor­er, I espe­cial­ly appre­ci­ate view­ers that have remained untouched since their last use. I care­ful­ly remove the dust of decades to reveal the orig­i­nal beau­ty of a stere­o­scope. Being the first one to do so feels almost like get­ting in touch with those who bought it a cen­tu­ry ago. I want to take you to one of those journeys.

My Magic Cards
August 30, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoviews
       

My Magic Cards

What kind of enter­tain­ment would you have as a Sovi­et kid grow­ing up in the 1980s? A cou­ple of dolls, clothes; metal­lic con­struc­tor sets, the vinyl record­ings of children’s sto­ries; some cas­settes with pop­u­lar Russ­ian songs, and a bunch of film­strips. These things were in almost everyone’s pos­ses­sion – at least, that’s how I remem­ber my friend’s toys. How­ev­er, I had some­thing very spe­cial – a set of stereo cards, along with a sim­ple stere­o­scope that looked like binoculars. 

Bright loose images for the Monumental Art series
July 30, 2021
History, Taking stereo photos
       

Bright loose images for the Monumental Art series

I am record­ing and doc­u­ment­ing in 3D wher­ev­er I go, such as Gal­leries and Muse­ums, and espe­cial­ly, when a Mon­u­men­tal Instal­la­tion by an Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, or artists takes place.

Fine British Stereoscopes and their makers
June 20, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

Fine British Stereoscopes and their makers

Not long after the Brew­ster view­er first appeared and the inter­est in stere­oscopy grew the mar­ket for view­ers grew like­wise and many designs of stere­o­scopes appeared includ­ing some very fine British view­ers. Read about box slid­ing view­ers, book view­ers, view­ers with cab­i­nets and many more.

Nostalgia, Semiotics & Weird Stuff: A Guide to Collecting View-Master
June 15, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoviews
       

Nostalgia, Semiotics & Weird Stuff: A Guide to Collecting View-Master

It’s prob­a­bly safe to assume that most peo­ple were intro­duced to 3D images via View-Mas­ter. Intro­duced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the hand­held 3D view­er was a very pop­u­lar for­mat that sold lit­er­al­ly bil­lions of prod­ucts from the 1940s right on through the 2000s. Here you’ll find a brief his­to­ry of View-Mas­ter, some images from my col­lec­tion and key con­tent cat­e­gories that may be of inter­est to those look­ing to start or grow their collections. 

The Brewster Stereoscope – its improvements and variations
May 23, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

The Brewster Stereoscope – its improvements and variations

The Brew­ster stere­o­scope was with­out doubt the sin­gu­lar most pop­u­lar design of stere­o­scope from 1851 until the 1930’s when new for­mats took over and dur­ing this time its basic design changed very lit­tle. Though, there soon was a broad vari­ety of improve­ments and elab­o­rate decorations.

Le Taxiphote — the most famous French stereo viewer
May 2, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoscopes
       

Le Taxiphote — the most famous French stereo viewer

The Veras­cope and the Tax­iphote are two halves of an unbe­liev­able stereo devel­op­ment effort that went on for 40 years essen­tial­ly with­out any changes. The Tax­iphote was export­ed to and patent­ed in many coun­tries. All this serves as an exam­ple of how attrac­tive stere­oscopy was at that time, and also con­firms the qual­i­ty of the Tax­iphotes as a tech­ni­cal device. We can only guess at the pres­tige of hav­ing a Tax­iphote at that time. 

True Crime in Old Stereographs
April 20, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoviews
       

True Crime in Old Stereographs

What is meant by true crime? It’s a non­fic­tion genre hav­ing to do with actu­al crimes, usu­al­ly mur­der. It’s pop­u­lar now, but it was pop­u­lar in the 19th cen­tu­ry too‒just think of the pen­ny press and the Nation­al Police Gazette. As the joke says, “Crime may not pay, but it sells!”. I was curi­ous to see if it made its way into stereo cards, too. In what fol­lows, I’ve tried to pro­vide a thumb­nail sketch of each crime. Accounts from the time often vary, so I’ve tried to present a com­pos­ite set of the facts which I think are the most likely.

The Nevers Collection
March 20, 2021
Collecting, History, Stereoviews
       

The Nevers Collection

The sto­ry of 21 stereo glass neg­a­tives from the ear­ly stages of The Great War in Nev­ers, France.

Stereo cards from modern times
February 23, 2021
History, Taking stereo photos
       

Stereo cards from modern times

I present you a series of mod­ern stereo cards, inspired by the Vic­to­ri­an way of depict­ing real­i­ty: Stereo­scop­ic pho­tog­ra­phy. I’ve been inspired and fas­ci­nat­ed by the atmos­phere of old stereo­scop­ic cards, which were, in their time, the most real­is­tic way to immor­tal­ize and then relive the mem­o­ries dri­ven by the sight of a par­tic­u­lar scene. I show you how to cre­ate your own mod­ern stereo card in 10 minutes!