Time has always been an element of photography, but stereo gifs literally incorporate it. (The NYPL is now accepting partners to contribute stereograms to the site.) I have no stomach for 3D films (they move too fast for those prone to vertigo) but with traditional stereo viewers and this new gif process, the viewer can control how slowly she sees the illusion of depth. This in turn inspired the New York Public Library's "Stereogranimator," which allows visitors to convert stereograms into gifs by altering degree of overlap of the two photos and amount of time of perspective flip. Stereograms, the photos themselves, have had a new life on the web since a developer had the brilliant idea of turning them into animated gifs. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as animated gif. And the Magic Eye illusions popular in the 1990s are examples of autostereograms, stereo illusions visible without a special viewer by focusing the eyes behind the image. It peeked back into the mainstream, for instance, in the post-war 1940s, when Viewmaster reels of fairytales and tourist attractions were popular. (Stereoscopes were also used in experimental psychology to study depth perception.) 3D still photography has had a number of cultural ups and downs since its Victorian heyday. Stereograms could be viewed on stereoscopes at home but were also available on stereoscopic viewers at fairs and other public spaces. Science, travel, news photography, storytelling tableaux, sentimental scenes - all were popular stereogram subjects. The technical challenges were mostly solved in the mid-19 th century, allowing for a flourishing of the stereogram medium. Color stereograms (anaglyphs) are slightly more complicated, with red/cyan color filters creating the illusion of depth. Special stereo cameras followed closely on the invention of stereo photography, so photographers no longer needed to move their cameras between shots - the twin lenses were set within the general range of distance between human eyes (50-80 mm). Stereo photography and viewing techniques were developed before the Civil War (they were a hit at the Great Exhibition of 1851), and the practice flourished among the newly leisured middle classes and the new mass media culture well into the advent of cinema. In stereoscopy, two paired 2D photos, of the same scene but taken from a slightly different perspective, are viewed together to trick the brain into seeing depth. Cute animals were a favorite stereogram subject. This was exactly how stereoscopes were used in middle-class parlors in the 19th century, as a group leisure activity for parties and rainy days, like showing your friends the latest kitten antics on YouTube. At a party in Minneapolis, a friend dug out her antique store finds, a stereoscope and box of stereograms, and we all gathered round, oohing and aahing, anxious to take our turns to see the faded double photographs pop into sharp 3D. I first played with a stereoscope myself long before I became a historian. This is a perfect time for it, what with our culture's obsession with Victorian detritus and with the artisanal, as well as new technical developments and the new popularity of 3D cinema. I'm surprised that we haven't yet seen a stereoscope revival.
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