The Fine Arts Library recently acquired a collection of over 200 original stereographic photographs, found in an attic in Maine. Among them are some of the earliest examples of 3D photography, including experimental glass plate stereographs pioneered by Franklin White of Lancaster, N.H. White was a landscape painter and photographer who turned his attention to stereography when the art form was still in its early stages. He began making daguerreotype stereographs in the 1850s. He then experimented with glass plate transparencies, and eventually albumen photographic prints mounted on cards (from 1861 on). The early glass stereographs in this collection are among the oldest we have seen and feature views including the Boston Common and the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Pictured in this post is a close-up of a glass stereograph showing the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The Old Man of the Mountain is a natural rock formation that in profile resembles a stone face on the side of Cannon Mountain. First recorded in 1805, it soon became a popular tourist site. Unfortunately the rock formation collapsed on May 3, 2003, and the face fell to the ground. Prior to that, the Old Man’s face had gone through multiple “surgeries,” with elaborate weatherproofing, 20 tons of cement, plastic coverings, and steel rods and turnbuckles in efforts to “save the face.” When it eventually collapsed, people left flowers at the base of the cliffs.[1]
For further reading:
Douglas Heil. The Art of Stereography: Rediscovering Vintage Three-Dimensional Images.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, [2017].
William C. Darrah. The World of Stereographs. Gettysburg, Pa.: Darrah, 1977.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Mountain
