CHAPTER 6STEREOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUENE HUNDRED YEARS AGO the photographer, professional or
0 amateur, was assumed to be a stereographer as a matter of
course. All photographic shops carried full lines of stereo equip-
ment and stereograms by a number of nationally known stereog-
raphers were readily available.
Later, specialization set in and stereo became a special field and
one in which the amateur took the lead. In that fact we have the
key to the loss of stereo popularity. At the end of the last century
it seems that in any activity human free will was abhorred as posi-
tively obscene. Everything from dawn to midnight was regulated.
In short the period was precious in the extreme. Stereo seemed to
fall into the hands of a group which was unusually rule-minded.
The result was to surround stereo with a wall of rules and regula-
tions which left only the bare possibility of making an occasional
exposure. It seems unlikely that any stereographer could observe
all of the rules and make more than a half-dozen stereograms in
a year!
Today stereo is popular, and fortunately our mentality is such
that when we hear of a rule we immediately want to see if it can
be successfully broken-in stereo it usually can. Today the stere-
ographer considers an afternoon a loss if he fails to expose a half
magazine, that is, some 15 stereo exposures; and 50 or 100 is a
normal week-end production. Obviously these are not master-
pieces of art, nor are they intended to be such. The modern ama-
teur has learned that stereo reproduces what he originally saw,
and the stereo camera preserves the highlights of pleasant week-
ends or vacations. Many of the stereograms are beautiful, some of
them exquisitely so. But the point is that the stereogram of today
is made, not because the stereographer believes himself to be a
great artist, not to impress a group of friends or club members, not
as an excuse to strut pompously before a group, but purely be-
cause of the pleasure it affords the maker and his friends. This
fortunate and wholesome attitude has revived stereo and will
keep it alive.
Therefore, in this discussion of stereo technique, we shall de-
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