Ian Ference's 3D blog on all things stereographic, from classic scopes & stereoviews to historical context & modern analysis
"La Délivrance", the statue that was at the center of the Nantes Memorial to the War Dead, was also at the center of a lot of controversy. Placed in July of 1927, it was torn down by far-right wing vandals - not to be restored for 91 years, on the Armistice Centenary.
An amateur set of contemporary modern ruins photography of Reims, at and around the bombed-then-burned-out Cathedral, and probably taken well before the end of the Great War, shows 12 views from a very talented photographer, documenting the damage to a beautiful city and its centerpiece.
Two glass plate negatives from the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris, taken from roughly the same position, give a window into the history of the Expo, as well as some of the underlying tensions that were coming to a boil in advance of the Second World War.
A port or other fortified waterfront in Belgium, photographed by A. O. Fasser, is the subject of today's Month of Remembrance post - along with some brief discussion on maritime combat during the Great War.
Four of A. O. Fasser's stereo photos (from a set on Belgium) are not like the other ones - let's take a look!
A look at the next box marked "Belgium" in the A. O. Fasser, as well as a consideration as to why plates in poor condition still need the "deluxe treatment" as regards their conservation.
A new box of slides from Brentano's - stamped "Verdun" on the front - gives me the opportunity to make some side-by-side comparisons of both duplicate and same-subject images from my collection.
A double exposure can be accidental. But this strange triple exposure - found in one of A. O. Fasser's "Belgium" boxes - was almost certainly made on purpose. The question is: to what end?
While not as commonly represented in exciting sets of stereoviews, photographs and newsreels from the front - or any media really, standing around and shooting the breeze was as much a part of Great War life as ducking for cover during a bombardment or hastily fitting a gas mask. These were men at war, but foremost, they were men living their lives.
Dr. Fasser's collection came with a twine-bound set of 8 slides marked "Rheims", a common alternate spelling of Reims. But given what's on the slides, he couldn't have made them all himself - so we must examine the evidence to try to suss out whether Fasser ever did photograph Reims.