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I first encountered stereo photography as a child of five or six when I came across a Holmes viewer and a set of World War I, or maybe it was Boer War views, in my mother's old nursery, when staying with my grandparents. I didn't find those particular views very appealing but the experience was memorable. Later, like most children growing up in the 1950s and 60s I encountered the Viewmaster phenomenon and red & green anaglyph 3D and always loved that magic moment when two flat images combine to make a single three-dimensional one. Fast forward to 1990 and I had become immersed in holography, the ultimate in late 20th century 3D and gradually began to have a greater curiosity about earlier forms of three dimensional image making. A friend took me to a Photograph Collectors Fair where I was able to browse through hundreds, if not thousands, of mostly 19th century stereo views and acquire examples for as little as £1 each. It was irresistible. Over the next ten years or so I amassed a sizeable collection of, mostly British, stereographs, and viewers of all shapes and sizes. I collected views of places I knew or was planning to visit and of subjects that appealed to me for a variety of reasons. All Victorian life was there in Genre Scenes, Still Life subjects, Pretty Girls, Children & Animals, and views of Landmarks and Beauty Spots throughout the UK. As I became more discerning I took a special interest in particular photographers: the Landscape views of G.W.Wilson and the Genre views of Elliott and Silvester. These latter, mostly hand-coloured, images tend to be studio compositions, often with elaborate sets, telling Moral Tales , sentimentalising or poking fun at aspects of Victorian Life, or dramatising Well-Known Stories. The best examples are real jewels, dramatically composed and delicately coloured, and even these, at the time I bought them, were seldom more than £10 - £15 each which, considering that such fragile materials as paper and cardboard had managed to survive over 100 years, seems pretty good to me. The selection of stereographs I am presenting here are some of my favourites from the Genre section of my collection. Some are from sequences or series that revealed themselves as I continued to visit dealers and fairs though, since I haven't come across any lists on which these images feature, I can't be sure that I have them in the correct order. I don't think it matters though as I enjoy looking at each one individually and I hope you will too. Jonathan Ross June 2007 |
