
Early photography was very different, in fact photography up until the nineteen nineties was constrained by the storage medium. But with the advent of digital cameras and electronic storage the world changed. Back in the Victorian era a camera was a huge box with a brass mount for a large glass lens, all supported on a sturdy wooden tripod. It had been discovered in the early decades of the nineteenth century, by Sir Charles Wheatstone, that human vision was “binocular”, that is each eye sees the object from a slightly different perspective, and the brain interprets this as a three dimensional object.
This set in train the development of a means of viewing images like the real world experience of three dimensions. It was realised that by taking two photographs simultaneously, with the lens in the same plane but separated by the distance apart of human eyes, around 2½” (65mm) the two images when viewed in a holder could fool the observer into seeing a three dimensional scene. The method was improved upon by Sir David Brewster who invented a stereo viewer, not dissimilar to a pair of binoculars holding the viewable images to the fore. His device began a craze in the 1850’s which swept the world. People set up companies to exploit the interest and suddenly people in a middle class Victorian household could view lifelike photographs of places around the World hitherto only read about, or viewed as a lithographic picture in black and white.
Imagine my surprise to discover that a set of these very pictures existed showing Parlington in the nineteenth century. The stereo photographs came to light when a family was clearing out some old cupboards containing toys and the like, played with by their grandchildren. The cards containing two images of ostensibly the same scene were amongst other items no longer played with. Fortuitously the owner thought it might be worthwhile seeing if he could discover the place written on the rear of some of the cards. Yes Parlington, and finding my website he made contact.
Later I received cards and the Brewster viewer, I was spellbound as I observed the old hall in three dimensions, a scene not observed for over a century! Particulars about the discovery can be found at www.parlington.co.uk/artifacts.lasso?process=8