P3D Stereocard History and use, also 2D and 3D

["Stuart Stiles" <sstiles@xxxxxxx>]

Jon Golden wrote:

"If I were looking to get books or online information on the history of the
stereocards useespecially on the commercial side of topics (railroads,
industry...etc.)....does anyone have any suggestions?  I know and have the
Paul Wing book so thanks in advance if that was the thought."


Jon:

	Have you seen the book, "When I Wanted the Sun to Shine" Kilburn and Other
Littleton, New Hampshire Stereographers by Linda McShane?

	The recent book, "Carleton Watkins the Art of Perception" is filled with
plates showing his beautiful "mammoth" prints, however in Douglas R.
Nickel's essay (page 28 of that book) the discussion turns to Watkins' use
of stereo.  "For Watkins, preoccupied with the challenge of offering his
audience a visceral experience of western scale and space, the stereo format
was both creative touchstone and practical tool. ... Watkins intuitively
understood the genius of the stereo to live less in its pretense of solidity
than in its cultivation of the ephemeral - the way it turned photographic
reality into illusion.  An early Yosemite view, to which he gave the
uncharacteristically poetic title, 'Inverted in the tide stand the grey
rocks.' (plate 22) features the Three Brothers entirely as reflection,
capsized on the glassy surface of the Merced River and moored to land by the
slightest of shorelines.  Watkins also played with this visual idea in his
large format work... but with his stereos he found perceptual complexity
raised to another order."

Stuart