Although 3D photography is really cool it never really picked up. A few colleagues of mine took 3D photography exploration and production journeys, non succeeded

During the late 1900’s however, 3D photography , or stereography was an extremely popular medium. Photographers traveled around the globe to capture 3D images from far away places, and a Holmes viewer was available for almost every middle class family.  I took a closer look at some of these early works: masterpieces.  The way these photographer controlled depth and the 3D effect is outstanding. They have created images of great complexity and mastery of the medium.

The contact prints made from the large original negatives produced high resolution prints that could be viewed at close range and present great detail.  The small digital 3D cameras of today do not show as much detail.

Stereo card test print

After playing around with Fujifilm w3 3D camera for a few weeks and viewing them on various devices, i came to realize that the early stereo photos were created before Edison’s light bulb – at the time photographic prints were only made via contact prints, so in order to have a large print, one must use a large camera.

The Mammoth Camera was built for producing a train commercial

Stereo cards with Holmes viewers were a reasonably priced, portable way for capturing and viewing photographs not only 3D, but mainly – large.

The invention of light bulbs, followed by photographic enlargers and increase in photo paper sensitivity, enabled the production of large 2D prints. This released audiences from cumbersome 3D viewing methods.  Since than, the popularity of 3D photography was never the same.