P3D Re: Demographics

[bill3dbw3d@xxxxxxxx (Bill C Walton)]

Now I know why my 90 year old golfing buddy calls everyone under 70
"Sonny".  I don't believe I am the oldest member of P3D, but maybe some
of the other Senior Experienced Stereographers (SES) don't want to admit
their age/whatever.  

I will be 68 in February, which of course does not come close to the
"Godfather of Stereo" Paul Wing.  At 85 I think he is one of the oldest
active SESs.  I know that Dr Markley, in the SSA Alfa Transparency folio,
is older than Paul, but I don't think his stereo activities can compare
to Paul's.

My first stereo experience was with a box of beat up, scratched Keystone
stereo cards and a very dilapidated stereoscope that was in the county
Library in Clarksville Arkansas when I  was a young boy.  I spent many
afternoons viewing those cards and taking "trips" all over the world.

My stereo interests were dormant for many years as I found other
activities to occupy my time i.e. racing sports cars for a hobby and
flying helicopters and airplanes as an Army Aviator.  I was a casual
photographer since I bought my first Zeiss Ikon camera in Germany in
1949.  During my 2d tour in the Republic of Vietnam. 1967-68 I became
more seriously interested in photography as a means of getting my
thoughts away from repairing beat-up, shot-up helicopters all day long.

After my 2d tour,in 1968, I spent 45 days in Clarksville Arkansas( where
my wife lived for a year) I made friends with an old photographer who had
lived there all my life.  He really did want to "talk photography:" so I
spent a lot of afternoons with him.  The talk got around to 3-D one time
and he dug around in his files and came up with some stereo cards that he
had made many years before..  He explained what we now call  weight shift
or astronaut shuffle stereography to me and said it is easy to do (He was
correct).  But he didn't have a stereoscope and apparently didn't know
about free viewing as it was not mentioned.  

This one afternoon session with SES Frazier piqued my stereo interest
again.  But I didn't try any stereo as I did not have a stereoscope.  It
was 1973 before I was able to find a scope and I immediately began to
make weight shift stereos.  I quickly realized the limitations of this
method and bought a Olden Beamsplitter (I know this terminology is
incorrect) and then graduated to a Iso Duplex, making BW stereo cards all
the while.  I joined NSA in 1975, found the SSA thru the magazine and
became SSA member 715 in 1978.  I bought my first Realist in April 1978,
took my first stereo slide in 1985 after buying a TDC 716 projector for
$5 at a yard sale.  I still make an occaisonal roll of slides although
stereo cards are my weapon of choice.  I am a couple of thousand
negatives behind in my printing and I am shooting more all the time. 

I think there are many more SESs on rolls of P3D and perhaps they will
send their demographic info.  It is rather difficult to define, age wise,
what a "Senior" is as there are at least three level of Seniors in
Columbus GA-50,55,62,65.   


Bill C Walton, Interested in Stereo Cards
"You can always tell a person raised in the 1930s and 40s, they turn out
the light when they leave the room"
bill3dbw3d@xxxxxxxx

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