ABOUT STEREO. Stan provided a short introduction to both the Stereo technique and the two shows.

Stereo images have had periods of popularity over the years. The last big peak in interest was in the 1950s and 60s. Three inventions led to this peak interest:

1. The Polaroid polarizing filters created by Edwin Land in the 1930s provided the means to project two full colour stereo images while keeping them separate.

2. Kodachrome colour, first offered in 1935 by Kodak, gave us fine grain 35mm colour slides which could be combined to make stereo pairs suitable for projection.

3. The Stereo Realist Camera, invented by Seton Rochwite and manufactured in 1947 by the David White Company, a firm known for its precision surveying instruments.

The first two set the stage, and when the Realist was announced, after a very negative marketing survey, it triggered a new interest in stereo that lasted over twenty years. By the 1970s, interest fell off again to be kept alive by a small group of enthusiasts including the Photographic Society of America.

It's Stereo Division remains active and periodically releases Hall of Fame stereo slide shows. Our speaker tonight is the past editor of the Stereo divison newsletter, Dimensions Three.

PSA SHOW. Hall of Fame Number 8 (1997) was assembled by Barrie Bieler, FPSA of the Oakland Camera Club (California). Only images with multiple acceptances by other shows are considered for the Hall of Fame series. Visit the OCC web site to see some stereo images in 3D right on your computer. The images are offered in three different formats. The OCC also has a page describing the various formats and what you need to view them at home.

The 1997 series is an historical grouping of images. Most are from the 1950s to 1980s. Almost all are copies and as such a bit contrasty. Some of the older images suffered some fading which I tried to correct in Photoshop for this page. Stan taped the edges of some of the slides to fit his projector, and carefully cleaned them all to make the stereo effect comfortable to view.

He and Gerry Loban edited the script and Gerry provided the narration. I am showing just a few (non-stereo) examples here. The most common subjects seemed to be nudes, rock climbers and extreme weather. In capturing some examples to post, I neglected capture the name of the photographer for credit. All these images are copyright by the photographer and must not be reproduced without permission. Click on the image below to see a larger version in a separate window.

PROJECTING THE SLIDES. Stan used his excellent Brackett Dissolver to project the images. It consists of the optical and illumination components from four Ektagraphic projectors combined with a dissolver to smoothly shift from one image to the next. The slides were projected on a silver lenticular screen since non-silver screens disperse the polarization, defeating the stereo effect.

CAPTURING THE IMAGES. To capture images from the screen, I held a polarizing filter in front of my tripod-mounted Nikon 990. Occasionally the filter slipped adding a ghost to the image. The combination of the silver screen and the polarizing filter reduced the illumination to the point where many of the images took a four second exposure making sharpness almost impossible.