Archie Johnson aboard his sail boat c1950
Toronto. Apologies to Gene Hackman and the exciting movie, “The French Connection”. In late 1987, one of our founders and a driving force for our fairs, the late Lauro (Larry) Boccioletti, wrote an article in issue 13-3 called, “ARCHIE JOHNSON, an overlooked Canadian experimenter”.
3D movies have been around for some time – I saw one in Montreal in the late 1950s. But as Mr Johnson discovered, no one made any means for amateurs to record and project 3D movies.
Lauro begins his article as follows, “Last October, you may recall that we held our annual Fall Fair at the Lakeshore Inn, Toronto. As part of the publicity. the Toronto Star ran a photograph of me with a selection of cameras from my collection.
“The article contained a paragraph stating that the public were welcome to bring along any cameras that they wished to have appraised while in attendance at the Fair. We were delighted with the response. Public interest was keen throughout the day and at times the lineup was four deep in front of the evaluation table.
“The Toronto Star publicity had certainly paid off. There is, however, an interesting little twist to this story!
Members that year enjoyed reading Larry’s story and how he discovered the amazing gadgets that created and projected stereo (illustrated, of course). More recent members could read the pdf version of this issue on the PHSC DVD. Not a member yet? Join and read this interesting story. The DVD has all volumes of Photographic Canadiana from 1 to 40. To join, see the above menu item ‘MEMBERSHIP’ (cheque) or the right hand sidebar (credit card or PayPal account).
