Series: London Zoo

Having just spent many hours looking at stereoviews from the Great War – corpses lying in scorched fields, grizzled men trudging through trenches, and the great machines of warfare – I thought I would take a few moments to look at something light-hearted and fun. A VistaScreen series seemed just the ticket – while not exactly good, they’re nothing if not light-hearted and fun. So here are some zoo shots from one of their early series – on ZSL London Zoo.

Not going to say much here, really – I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Setting themselves up as an Anglocentric alternative to “light content” publishers like View-Master and (non-1300s series) Tru Vue, Vistascreen failed fairly quickly – but not before publishing around 300 sets of ten cards each. As discussed in my previous VistaScreen post, the photographic quality is generally pretty laughable – and boy does this set demonstrate that! Chopping subjects off at the feet, using stereo through barred cages, having railings that widely diverge, overuse of hyper-stereo foreground images – this comes off as frankly amateurish.

It’s as if the company gave a random zoo visitor a 35mm stereo camera with a 24-exposure roll, they took 12 random stereo photos, and the “best” 10 were selected. Of course a couple are going to come out okay – “Flamingos” is a bit overexposed, but neat, and “Llama” & “King Penguins” are enjoyable, even with carelessly amputated feet.

These are still fun! Who can say no to penguins in 3D? So without further ado, the stereoviews for free viewing, and then the anaglyphs for red/cyan viewing!