cover of Stereo Realist Manual, ©1954
Toronto. When we got our new newsletter editor, Patrick Gunn, we also got our new stereo mavin! Now a Torontonian, Patrick hails from BC, and brings with him a wealth of newsletter ideas, mock-ups, and plans, plus a burning interest in photographic history, especially stereo.
Stereo is a bit like a fad. The concept seems to come and go over the years. It appears ready to take-off once again. We shall see (I saw one 3D movie a few years back that was a huge jump in reality and easing eye-strain).
In the 1950s wave of stereo-mania, David White produced the amazing 35mm stereo camera called the ‘Realist’. The well-built camera was more expensive than a Leica at the time.
The Realist handbook is published by Morgan & Lester – no strangers to the Leica (they published umpteen editions of the “Leica Manual”). The book has a stereo viewer you can hold over your eyes (wearing glasses or not) and see the book’s full colour illustrations in 3D. The book has chapters by people like Harold Lloyd, Edgar Bergen, and Beaumont Newhall. The 400 page handbook with its clay-coated pages (delays fading) is available used today – occasionally at our events, in used-books stores or even on-line.
In addition to various 3D cameras and reference books, Photographic Memorabilia down in Lexington MA, reprinted in 1976 the manual that once accompanied a new Realist camera. Keep an eye pealed for the Stereo Realist Manual – or a Realist. Well worth owning.
