part of the jonathan ross collection
Stereoviews
Viewing Stereoviews
To view stereoviews, or stereographs as they are sometimes called, you would traditionally use a stereoscope. These have been produced in hundreds if not thousands of different designs and collecting stereoscopes is a fascinating subject in itself.
I can recommend Paul Wing’s book ‘Stereoscopes: The First One Hundred Years’, for anyone with a serious interest, though the secondhand price is now very high https://www.alibris.co.uk/search/books/isbn/9780965449748?
You can acquire vintage stereoscopes easily on eBay, the commonest model being the Holmes style Sun Sculpture stereoscope, which was manufactured by Underwood & Underwood in the millions during the 20th century. There are also many beautiful versions of the earlier Brewster style viewer, dating from the 1850s.
However, having tried out a large variety of viewers, I would recommend the OWL stereoscopic Viewer, which is produced by Brian May’s relaunched London Stereoscopic Company. These are inexpensive, with quality lenses, and suitable for viewing stereoviews by both reflected and transmitted light. In other words, they work for hold to the light views such as tissues or glass stereos, as well as cards.
You can buy these directly from the company here: https://shop.londonstereo.com/OWL-B-ENV.html
A stereoview factory, Ferrier & Soulier, copy by Gaudin
The company also manufactures a pocket sized lorgnette style viewer called the Lite OWL: https://shop.londonstereo.com/LITE.html
The alternative to stereoscopes is the technique known as FREE VIEWING.
Those of you who were around in the 1980s may remember ‘random dot stereographs’, known commonly as Magic Eye Pictures, which involved staring at a seemingly indecipherable pattern until it resolved into a three dimensional picture of leaping dolphins or some other such unsophisticated design.
Freeviewing involves looking at stereoviews in the same way. It took me years to master but, curiously, once I needed reading glasses it became a lot easier and it has since become second nature.
If you want to learn to Freeview, which is the easiest way to enjoy stereoviews on your phone or computer, there is a helpful tutorial on The Stereoscopy Blog:
https://stereoscopy.blog/2019/08/04/how-to-view-stereoscopic-3-d-images-basic-tutorial/
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.