270 THREE-DIMENSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHYIf the stereographer can obtain more realistic effects through
hyperstereo, as he most assuredly can, then that is fully satisfactory
evidence of the very real value of hyperstereo as a recognized ele-
ment of stereo technique.
Too much cannot be said against the stringent and wholly un-
reasonable limitations placed upon stereography by those whose
sole interest is theory rather than the making of stereograms, and
who condemn work for the method used rather than for the re-
sult achieved.
Any statement that so-and-so many times normal is the limit for
hyperstereo, simply indicates that the speaker is not familiar with
fundamental stereoscopic laws. The best results are obtained by
those who experiment, and who find, not the limit in base units,
but the apparent distance at which certain large objects appear to
the best advantage.
It is one of the beauties of stereo that you can control it to an
almost infinite extent. You can place objects at any desired dis-
tance and by careful work you can intermingle natural and fan-
tastic distances in a single stereogram.
Finally the question arises, “Why not approach so near to the
subject that natural stereo relief is seen?” The answer is that
many of the most promising hyperstereo subjects are so huge that
any such approach eliminates most of the subject and leaves only
a restricted area, often of little beauty or interest.
Above all, avoid the common and regretable practice of using
normal base for such shots with some bit of extraneous fore-
ground, usually a wholly inappropriate human figure looking
away into the scene, just to introduce enough stereo relief to show
that it is truly a stereogram. If the stereogram is not self-evident
in the principal part of the subject, then it had better not be
made. If there is a genuine foreground subject of real interest,
and the mountains are to form simply a theatrical backdrop, then
the normal base may be used; but when the distance itself is the
subject, then by all means make a stereogram of it, not a double
flat photograph!