Novelty, Saturation and good 3-d work... (long)

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My response to the question by John Arrowsmith, brought the following
random thoughts regarding novelty, saturation and good 3-d work:
 
I clearly remember the excitement when I mounted my first Realist stereo 
slide... That's great!  Fantastic!  Very impressive... My first Realist 
rolls from our trip to Greece in 1988 was my best 3-d work ever... or so I 
thought... I also remember my first twin-SLR hyperstereo... Wow, look at 
those clouds!  And my first SLR close-up... It felt great!  A close-up of a 
piece of bread... what a sight!  It works, and it is much better than 
Realist, I thought.  A well-captured, mounted in 7-p, SLR slide pair will 
beat any Realist slide at any time, I used to say... 
 
That's called NOVELTY and it is history for me... 
 
Thousands of images later, SATURATION and common sense have settled in...
By now, I have thrown away half of my first treasured Realist pairs and 
have kept most of the rest in a tight box, for personal memories only.  
The "Piece of bread", together with dozen other close-ups, are examples 
of "scientific interest", not good stereo photography...
 
After nearly 50 years of Realist photography, the arena of stereo slide 
exhibition is certainly oversaturated with normal-7ft-to-inf-Realist-format 
slides.  And so are most of us who only work in this format.  The novelty 
factor still works and bites those who are not exposed to different 
formats... For example, one of my slides in Expo1 was an ordinary  SLR
"snapshot" close-up of noodles in the shape of wheels.  It got a lot of 
praise and many votes... from those who have not seen any close-up 3-d 
work, I assume...
 
Other novelty areas:  Medium format, Macro Realist slides (not new but just 
not too many around), hyperstereos (also not very common) and (photo-3d 
take note) computer-generated 3-d images... (The computer images are fairly 
new and attract some attention... Just wait until everyone and their 
brother gets hold of cheap computers loaded with powerful image creating/
manipulating software and see what happens...)
 
The question is:  What's beyond the saturation point?  How can one do 
good 3-d work and impress an audience that has seen nearly everything?  
And the answer is..., in my opinion,... HARD WORK... 
 
I am not talking about the ordinary record-keeping snap-shooting type of 
stereo photography, documenting our family or vacation... There is nothing 
wrong with this type of photography... I take and enjoy plenty of it and I 
am very thankful for the Stereo Realist that makes it possible.  Here I am 
talking about GOOD stereo work worth exhibiting, the kind that John 
Arrowsmith witnessed, the kind that we see projected in stereo slide shows, 
PSA competitions, NSA conventions... With judges and audience seeing plenty 
of well-exposed, sharp, contrasty 3-d images, with photographers using more 
of SLRs, RBT rigs, computer-imaging equipment, special techniques, etc., 
pulling out that old camera and shooting without any thought, plan or 
ideas... just won't do it.  It's only with hard work, talent or pure luck, 
or a good combination of the above, that one's work can make the mark... 
and surface over a mature and experienced audience or panel of judges...
 
With apologies to many excellent 3-d workers world-wide, some of which 
participate in this list, I would like to offer two examples...
 
One person who's work (not widely exhibited) has deeply impressed me, is 
Mark Wilke.  Mark has taken some of the best hyperstereos and Macro Realist 
slides I have ever seen.  I have read his description of the technique for 
taking the hyperstereos.  It involved an idea (inspiration), a well-thought 
plan of attack and plenty of hard work (respiration).  He set two cameras 
far way from each other... aligned them with trial and error and triggered 
them with air release cables.  It took many-many hours of work and plenty 
of rolls of film to end up with a dozen or so good pairs... No special 
tools required (the cameras were not SLRs but rangefinder cameras from the 
60s).  I personally lack the patience to carry out such an elaborate plan 
of attack.  His macro Realist slides are equally impressive... I have seen 
a few macro Realist slides but his stand out.  A combination of good ideas, 
hard work and some luck, I assume... Being a "perfectionist" and trying to 
do better every time, helps too...
 
The other person is Stan White... I first saw his slide show "Beyond the 
3d Dimension" in Cincinnati/NSA 1988 but I was too "young" to appreciate it.  
I saw the same show again in Detroit this year and was left speechless... 
I think Stan put the entire club to shame, since the same night the club 
competition theme was "Fantasy" and Stan's work fits this description 
nicely.  His work was light of years ahead of ours... This time having some 
experience with tabletop photography (very crude compared to Stan's) helped 
me better appreciate what I saw.  I was paying attention to the setups, 
choice of colors, backgrounds, lighting and camera angle of view.  The 
technical aspect of photography (exposure, etc.) was perfect.  The choice 
of materials, setups, etc. was outstanding.  But the greatest virtue of all 
was the message and humor with which it was delivered.  I also noticed that 
many slides were mounted in narrower that Realist-format mounts... Some of 
his very best images were severely cropped but this had no effect on their 
impact.  In an ordinary good scenic view maybe size is a factor, but it 
ceases to be a factor "beyond the 3d dimension"...  Stan's work impressed 
and inspired all of us that night... 

I wonder how many years of hard work it will take before I start producing 
anything that approaches Stan's or Mark's work... I know that I lack Stan's 
talent (can this thing be taught?) and imagination and I also lack Mark's 
dedication and patience...  And with all these darn viewers that I have to 
fix, I also lack time... In other words, I am in deep s--t!
 
Dreaming in Cleveland OH -- George Themelis

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