Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs , opening today, will likely become the fourth 3-D movie this year to gross over $50 million . The basic technology is old—and for some, including Slate ‘s Daniel Engber, still a headache —but the genre may have finally overcome its boom-and-bust cycle of past decades.
Stereography, or 3-D photography, has had less luck. It was among the most popular photographic formats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each stereograph card presents two slightly different images of the same scene, which when viewed properly create an illusion of depth. In stereography’s heyday, middle-class families stocked their homes with the stereographic images of lands too distant to visit. Teachers wove stereographs into lessons about history , botany, and geology. The military used the technology for aerial reconnaisance. Stereography’s popularity, however, faded quickly with the advent of television and color photography after World War II. Since then, 3-D photography has largely been relegated to the plastic View-Master children’s toy, also waning in popularity. Could the box-office bonanza for 3-D movies drive a stereography renaissance?
There’s much to admire about the medium. Unlike 3-D movies, you can view stereographs without special glasses . In many cases, the depth enhances otherwise cluttered scenes. In the stereograph above, the woman, her stereograph viewer, her artifacts, and the fireplace get the breathing room that each image of the flat pair lacks. It’s also just fun to have the scene “pop” out at you. Curious viewers can find hundreds of thousands of historical stereographs , and a smattering of contemporary albums , online. And it’s pretty darn easy to make them yourself, either with a standard camera or by rigging a specialized setup for $15 .
Still, it seems more likely that stereography will remain a small-time hobby , if only because there’s ostensibly no money in it. Hollywood loves a good cross-promotion, but there have been few if any stereograph tie-ins to the latest 3-D films. But it’s not such a far fetched idea—stereographs did begin as a mass consumer product. Pixar could drop stereo pairs promoting its next 3-D film into boxes of sugar-packed cereal or a Happy Meal. Until then, I’m happily consigned to getting my 3-D photography kicks from historical gems like this rare Abe Lincoln hairdo .
