Re: mystery view showing photographer

[jweiler@xxxxxxx (John Weiler)]

Andy Burr writes:

>I have a mystery, too: a totally unmarked grey curved mount (pretty sure it's
>a Keystone) of a European scene, a lady washing clothes next to a canal.
>Talking to her is a photographer sitting holding a telebinocular viewer; his
>Stereo Graflex (I think) open on the ground next to him. His face is turned
>away, but he's tall and lanky, receding hairline but no facial hair, wearing >a brown or gray (well, it's a b&w photo) casual suit. Who....?

It's a bit unusual to encounter a normally published Keystone view
without the usual labeling.  But unless this image is an unpublished
variant, your view is Keystone 33302, position 435 from the 1200 card
World Tour, titled: "Gossip beside the River Oust Whose Waters Reflect
the Castle Josselin, France."  The text on the reverse mentions the
"Keystone Travel Club Photographer", but doesn't identify him.  The
text continues: "It was a two-eyed camera in the hands of his
assistant that has brought us this view which tells how our
photographer with his limited French vocabulary could explain to this
friendly little woman just what he was doing and how his two-eyed
camera was making picture records in all parts of the world so that
wherever there were telebinoculars one part of the world could know
much more about the other part than had before been possible.  It is
very probable that the stereograph in the telebinocular has made real
for that woman some scene or place in our country, or perhaps even in
her own country where she had never been."  The blather continues but
doesn't mentioned stereo or photography.

The book accompanying the 1200 card set identifies the stereographer in
this view - he's George K. Lewis, subject of a lengthy illustrated
article in "Stereo World", Nov.-Dec. 1993, Vol. 20 No. 5.  Some of the
text was contributed by his brother Walter; other parts came from
excerpts from his letters.  This view is shown on the bottom of page
20, so you can see if yours is identical or a variant.

John Weiler


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