Ian Ference's 3D blog on all things stereographic, from classic scopes & stereoviews to historical context & modern analysis
I refuse to honor Columbus Day, as I have for decades. So in celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day, here's a lovely portrait of a Zuni War Chief from Timothy H. O'Sullivan, primary stereographer on the Wheeler Expeditions.
I love penguins. Even taxidermic penguins, such as these specimens from the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution in Paris. While bereft of life they rest in peace, they're still lovely (and quite lifelike!) specimens. Let's take a trip to the museum!
Doctor A. O. Fasser took this 3D photo of two men fixing up a tire on a Nieuport 10, most likely in the spring of 1916. Here we take a look at the sesquiplane, before taking a look at the importance of negatives - both in general, and relative to the Fasser Collection.
After attending an Iron Maiden concert last night, I was inspired to dig back into my archives and find this morality play in a single 3D genre image - in which a monk, having broken his fast, is visited by a demon and a spirit - which, coming back around, seems like it could very much be the subject of an Iron Maiden song!
Bad puns aside, LSU really screwed the pooch on a 45x107mm glass plate stereoview - not only did they print the image horizontally reversed, but they managed to rotate the right-hand frame of the stereo pair by 180º. In this post, we explore the printing process that must have been employed by LSU in making an extremely goofy glass plate.
Being delighted to receive this bizarrely-tall thin paper stereoview a few days prior, I failed at the time to realize that it was a more expensive stereo pair than any of the other 1,000+ that I had received during "Christmas in July". And it was totally worth it, because penguins are the best!
On 1 April 1915, an MoS-3 piloted by Sergeant Jean Navarre took to the skies - where it encountered a German Albatros B.II. Some sharpshooting by the observer, Lieutenant Jean Robert, brought down the biplane - leading to the capture of the craft and its occupants, and the first victory for the MS 12 Escadrille, and medals for Navarre and Robert.
Sometimes, whilst one is sorting through a newly acquired collection, a new slide or card proves just captivating - and one winds up just admiring it through their favorite stereoscope for minutes on end. This was one from my latest acquisition which had this effect on me.
Miraculously, the Chicago Avenue Pumping Station survived the great fire of 1875 due to a German immigrant fireman. Happily, local stereographic photo outfit Lovejoy & Foster produced a fantastic, painterly view of the great steam-powered pumping station within 4 years later.
This dramatic Kilburn stereoview of a train climbing Mt. Washington is very dramatic - and very silly, when you realize that the camera was tilted to make the incline look much steeper than it was in reality. And it gets weirder - because at least 3 variants were printed, with the same series number!