Did you know that stereographs were
photographed as early as the American Civil War?
It’s true and “David Richardson is
on a mission to restore 500 stereoscopic images taken during the
Civil War.” 1 David explains that there were several cameras
modified during the Civil War to make stereographs from, “the wet plate camera that
was standard in the period…” to the, “the studio camera. A very common
image of the day was a Cartes de visite (or CDV) – This was a French term
for a visiting card, that was commonly left was a calling card when someone
paid a visit (like business cards today). Since the image was small,
photographers found that they could squeeze a lot of images on a single plate
by having special camera rigs built with 4, 8 or even 9 lenses. Photographers where already taking one side of
the stereo image and selling it as 2D prints so they knew it would be possible
to use these multi lens camera’s to create stereo cards. ”1
David has been painstakingly collecting
and restoring these stereographs “about 2200” from the Library of Congress
on-line collection and “about 800” from the National Archives.2 You too may own a piece of 3D history by
heading over to David’s website where you may purchase copies of his
restorations:
Well, I hope you found this
stereoscopic stroll through history interesting and here’s a hint at what I
plan to speak about next week; he was known as the man of a thousand faces and
he too was in 3D! More on that next week
and as always, please, feel free to leave me your comments.
Cheers-
Russell McGee
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