Got my milk, got my cookies, got my Viewmaster

Ever since I was little I was fascinated by the 'real' appearance of images inside of a Viewmaster.

Somehow those little discs could make everthing jump out, like you were actually in the image.

Stereoscopy (the technology utilized by the Viewmaster) is any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the an illusion of depth in an image.

The illusion of a 3D image is made possible by the viewmaster device which allows each eye to see a different image, distorting our binocular vision.

Under the umbrella of Stereoscopic imagery there's a bunch of things I find exciting. While the Viewmaster works in a Spacial or Cross-converged way, there's also complementary colour Anaglyphs (which you use those retro-looking red/blue glasses for) and Autostereograms (magic-eye type illusions), Lenticular printing and Holography.

While it is possible to create 3D stereoscopic images, we still seem to rely on a viewer to see the illusion. You can create your own 3D film (though this still requires 3D glasses), or you can spend ages squinting your eyes at pictures of cats on YouTube, like I did.
I'm just beginning to understand this and get my head around it, but definitely something to go on and explore within my work.


Want to see a guy inside a giant viewmaster? YES PLEASE.