P3D Re: Places & Times Remembered

["KENNETH LUKER" <KLUKER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    Having received the VHS Video "Stereo Photography: Places and 
Times Remembered" from Sandpail Productions (PO Box 1917, Studio 
City, CA, 91614, www.sandpail.com) shortly before New Years Eve, my 
wife and I watched it while waiting for midnight.  It is about forty 
minutes long, and I've now watched it twice.  I think I'll show it to 
our Stereo Society meeting later this month.

    The video is presented as an eavesdropping on the thoughts of 
Philip Brigandi, one of Keystone's itinerant photographers (retired 
1935) as he starts into his probably fictitious final assignment, 
years later, of going through the Keystone collection and weeding its
contents by half.  He reminisces about his own life and experiences
as a photographer and recalls the origins and history of stereoscopy, 
its milestones, inventions, personalities and life cycle from rise to 
heyday to decline.  

    The history covers Wheatstone, Brewster, Holmes, Underwood and
Underwood, Keystone and the travelogue-by-stereo phenomenon.  There
is no mention of transparencies, Realist or sirds, of course,
Brigandi having retired long before these were more than dreams. 
The part of Philip Brigandi is played by an actor with some physical
resemblence to the photographer, with the voice-over done by someone
with a suitably old voice.  The actor spends most of his time
looking dreamily at old shots, stroking his chin in thought or
giving appropriate facial expressions as the voice comments on what
he is examining.  I'd say it was a challenge in pantomime, but not
really very convincing.  As a story, Beyond the Sea of Time was a
bit more believable (barely) with the same sort of nostalgia.

    However, dramatic shortcomings aside, the content was interesting 
and worth watching.  The presentation is filled with stereo pairs (or 
in about half the cases, half of a stereo pair) that give a good 
sampling of the sort of stuff found on those Keystone and Underwood 
publications.  On the second pass, I stopped the vcr whenever a pair 
was presented and used my Freeviewer's  Assistant to view it.  The 
pairs filled the screen and were usually steady enough to be 
viewable.  They were too large to freeview without aid.  The medium-
range shots, where the person was shown holding the view, were 
usually too small to reveal good detail (those probably had not much 
more than a dozen or so scan lines to present the view).  

    I was interested to see one display of a page from a catalog of 
1903 showing what was billed as "Theodore Brown's 'Blockit' 
stereoscope - New Patent! - Price 1 /6 post paid, from Theodore 
Brown, 26 Diamond Rd., Bournemouth - Unlike any other stereo scope - 
Gives wonderful effects! "  The device shown could almost have been a 
photo of the now-available Freeviewer's Assistant-- a one-eyed, 
rectangular device, held between the fingers, and having one of the 
diagonally-directed mirrors visible through the eyehole.  I wonder if 
it ever really WAS patented.  

    The video throws in some interesting facts:  the "warp" in stereo 
cards dating from 1879; Keystone starting in 1892; Underwood and 
Underwood dropping the stereo business, transferring their negs to 
Keystone and concentrating on journalistic photo warehousing; the 
business reasons for moving to boxed sets rather than single 
views; the background of the rise of hand-tinted cards, etc.  

    The whole thing is underscored by delightful Joplin music, some of 
it played without the usual syncopated rag-time beat we hear in it 
today (I wonder what the REAL performance practice was, back then?).
Contrary to what I'd believed when the announcement of this video
first appeared in P3d a month or so ago, this is apparently not a
new production.  Sandpail copyrighted it in 1991, according to the
credits.  But I'm glad I have the video.  

Ken Luker
_______________________________________________________________
Kenneth Luker
Marriott Library Systems and Technical Services
KLUKER@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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