3D Stereo Photography
Door in the Chinese Garden inside Montreal Botanical Garden. Seen  in 3D stereo, the photograph invites you in more engagingly.

3-D photography has been around for a while. It involves taking two photographs which are slightly offset, if you are using a single lens camera. (Yes, there are cameras with two lenses) Taking the pictures is relatively easy. Viewing them is another matter.  With all stereo pair photos, when they are viewed online, you may have to move your head to the right distance, and you might have your head tilted slightly. If you are "getting close" but they don't seem to be fusing, you might try tilting your head every so slightly one way or the other.

Have you seen Single Image Random Dot Stereograms? They are now popular in malls around the world. If you can see those "images" then you can probably fuse the two-image photographs without the assistance of any device. This is called free-fusing. Some may need special glasses which can be obtained to help fuse the images. Two-image photographs can also be fused by stereopticons. These instruments have a sliding clip to adjust the distance of the photo from your head. And the instrument holds the photo pair horizontally for you.

It is fun to watch the reactions of people as they finally see the 3-D images. All of you are accustomed to 2-D images which you interpret as representing 3-D objects. That is not the same as a 3-D picture. At some point, when the pictures fuse, you usually hear wow or amazing. 3-D photos elicit more of a personal response than plain 2-D photos. When I showed 3-D photos of my new granddaughter to people, I could tell when the pictures fused for the viewers. The attitude changed from nice to Oh my! and instantly I could hear warmth creep into the comments as the 3-D photos elicited more emotional response than any 2-D. These are some samples of 3-D photos. The mountain views were taken in Berlin, NH, north of Mt. Washington. The flowers were in my own garden. The Mayan temples were taken at Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Among my favorites are these stereo pair shots of the Mayan Temple at Tulum. The enormity of them screams out all the more when they achieve 3-D impact. They stand steady in the wind, so they make a good subject when you have to snap two separate photos. Flowers in the garden can also be a good subject on a calm day. Wind would disrupt the flowers, causing them to be misaligned. If you took two pictures of a building with a flag flying in front of it, the moving flag would cause a problem when the brain attempts to fuse the images. This was a calm day when I snapped these photos of an hibiscus and a stargazer lily. Wind could also be a problem in these mountain scenes because they were shot on a hill not high enough to be dubbed a mountain. Some look at Mt. Adams. One of them has Mt. Washington peeking out from behind Mt. Adams. This again was a calm day. I got lucky, since there is almost always a stiff breeze at the altitude from which these were shot.