Re: Stereo Photography in the 50s and Today...

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

George Themelis wrote:

>My theory is that commercial mounting is to blame for that.  When you
>have to mount your own slides at the expense of time or expensive mounting
>material, then you think twice about what you are keeping.

That certainly is part of it.  Who'd waste time and materials mounting
1/2 a stereo slide in a stereo mount?!  I can't even recall mounting
any of the half-pairs from the beginning of a roll in a mono mount.

Mike K. suggested:

>Or that some people are just packrats and don't like to throw anything
>away.  [...]  A packrat's default is to keep things unless there is a
>*compelling* reason to throw it away.

I'm not sure it's packratting, exactly; more like a 'completionist'
thing, where, since the slides came back as a set, you keep the entire
set, warts and all.  No, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but then
people aren't entirely rational beings.

George again:

>Now that I discovered the less expensive cardboard mounts, I will most
>probably keep more pictures in the future.  Last night I was showing my
>wife pictures from my last rolls when I was testing the 3 cameras, and she
>kept asking "why did you keep this?" and "why did you keep that?"  It
>really got on my nerves!  Especially since some of the slides she was
>asking about, happened to be my favorites!  I explained to her that I will
>now be keeping more slides so I can share with people, give away and
>possibly sell/trade some.

There is one reason that *I* keep some "failures" (not the technically
poor slides, which I do discard, but shots that didn't work as intended,
for various reasons such as poor composition, insufficient DOF, etc.).
Part of it is the completionist syndrome I mentioned earlier, but the
failures also serve as a reminder what *not* to do the next time!
If we forget our failures, how can we learn from them?

	-Greg W.


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