Week 42 - 2019
Underwood & Underwood, Gudvangen’s outlook over the Naerofjord where the sea reaches far among the mountains, ca 1905. Stereophotography from the Preus museums collection.
Seeing double
A striking image. No, two, that might be confused as the same, but with a slight displacement relative to each other. Mirrored cows wandering in water, a shirt clad rower, black smoke rising and steep and swooping mountainsides in the background. A seemingly random section of a beautiful fjord, but it's not as unplanned as it seems. The photographer have shown what he/she has done (we dont know the photographers identity, just the producer Underwood & Underwood).
The photographer gives an exciting picture of a norwegian fjord that connects times of old (cows and rower) with the new (coalsteamer). But the most important was to build the picture with a foreground, middleground and background. These two nearly similar images are supposed to be seen through a stereoscope. Through a stereoscope the images seem to melt together, thus creating an experience of three dimensionality. To achieve that illusion of depth in something that is two dimensional, it is important to have the separate planes in the image.
You can see the image as three dimensional without the stereoscope as well. Hold the picture in front of you at approximately 20 cm range,and relax your eyes. If you experience three fleeting images, focus on the middle one. It will act as if it has depth!
More three dimensional experiences can be had in the Preus Museum exhibition «World in 3D».