part of the jonathan ross collection
Stereoviews
James Elliott
One too many
Explore the work of James Elliott with the following links which take you to a series of images and notes about each stereoview. These open in a new tab or window.
A comfortable size for freeviewing (parallel viewing) the images in the linked pdf documents is 125% or 150%. This can be adjusted at the top right of the document.
Some of the earliest examples of this important photographer’s work, including various images issued in the London Stereoscopic Company’s Second Series of 1856.
The English History series of re-enactments of famous moments from the past, and numerous other costume dramas beautifully staged in elaborate settings.
Scenes from middle class domestic life, with outings for picnics and games in the woods. A love triangle, a marriage, the newly weds at home and their first born.
More scenes of domestic life and children at play, Evenings at Home with the stereoscope, cards and chess, Dressing for a Ball and Going to Court, Scenes at the Ball and a Flirtation that ends in tears, A trip to the Derby ends in ruin. Many of Elliott’s most memorable stereoviews.
Stereoviews replicate the way we see the world by taking two views of a scene, one from the right eye position and another from the left. When these are mounted together and viewed in a stereoscope, the brain merges them into a 3-dimensional or ‘stereoscopic’ image.
The technique emerged in the 1850s, soon after the invention of photography, through the work of Charles Wheatstone and Sir David Brewster, and developed into a worldwide craze with thousands of practitioners.
Stereo photography has gone out of fashion several times over the past couple of centuries, only to be rediscovered by later generations. Most of the images on this site are by European photographers working in the 1850s and 60s.