P3D Re: Stereo World - A citical view

[jacob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Gabriel Jacob)]

Dr.T writes,
>I am reading the recent combined issue of Stereo World and I
>conclude that 90% of its material is historical research on
>stereo, of interest mainly to stereo collectors.  I am 
>desperate searching for material of interest to the modern 
>stereo photographer, and, frankly, I don't find much.

I didn't want to comment till I saw said issue. I got it today,
only 3Days after George! Hurray! Now back to the issue at
hand! No pun intended ;-)

But George what did you expect, this has always been the case.
Knowing the history of how NSA started, and from the limited
issues that I have, I quickly realized the emphasis on stereo
view history. I am sort of surprised that your commenting on
this now. (Well sort of surprised, I think your trying to stir
up some discussion, which is always welcome!)

To be fair the issues do have quite a bit of contemporary
articles but the historical articles tend to be very long.

>One example (only one):  In 24.5, pp 16-17, Editor John
>Dennis reviews the book "Theodore Brown's Magic Pictures".
>This is a book published in London by Stephen Herbert,
>The Projection Book.  The connection of this book with
>stereo is that Theodore Brown has done work in some fields 
>of stereo back in late 19th, early 20th century and most 
>of us know him from his own book "Stereoscopic Phenomena 
>of Light & Sight", (re)published by Reel 3-D.
>
>At the end of the review, we read of Alan Lewis' Freeviewer's
>Assistant.  It comes as an afterthought, no pictures, no
>real review, no mention of who Alan Lewis is.

Your point about featuring Alan Lewis as opposed to Theodore
Brown is well taken. But with all fairness, Alan did get good
coverage (about 20%) in the article and some good publicity
on where and how to buy his fine Freeviewer's Assistant.
Roughly twenty percent devoted to Alan when after all the
article is supposed to be about Mr.Brown is not bad (for Alan!).

Personally I don't mind too much the lack of "how to", (I get 
enough of it here on P3D!) but I do agree more articles on
contemporary 3-D stereo people would be nice.

>So the bottom line is this:  Is NSA STILL primarily a society for
>collectors or does it also represent contemporary stereography?  
>If it does, to what percent?  And how is this reflected to its
>official publication?

I think you can determine this by the types of tables at the NSA
conventions! I've only been to one so far, so you can make a better
observation. What I have noticed is that a fair portion of the
tables have to do with antique stereo view collections! What does
that tell you???

Gabriel


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