Not responsible for eye damage. :-)
Back before random-dot stereograms became the rage in the malls, in fact a hundred
years or more before crowds of glassy-eyed shoppers stood like idiots trying to sea
paisley dolphins jump out of calendars, photographers were shooting 3-D images. Most of
the pictures you've ever seen of Abraham Lincoln,
Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson and Civil War battle scenes are actually one half of a
3-D image. Quite a bit of Civil War photography was in 3-D.
It's easy for anyone with a point-and-shoot camera to shoot 3-D images of scenery and
buildings. Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, put most of your weight on your
left foot and aim your camera at a fixed spot on your subject. Snap a picture. Without
taking the camera away from your eye, shift your weight to your right foot. Aim the camera
at the same fixed spot and take another picture. (This technique doesn't work for shooting
people or anything that's moving.)
Take the resulting two images and lay them side-by-side. I like to put the right image
on the left and the left image on the right. If you do it this way, cross your eyes until
the two images come together to form a 3-D image. You may have to tip your head to one
side or the other in order to get the vertical alignment of the pictures right. If you
find that hard to do, put the pictures on the correct sides (left image on left side,
right on right) and focus beyond the plane of the photos. The images will begin to
drift. When the two images come together in the middle, your brain will bring them into
focus and create a 3-D image.
The text below is a stereo pair. Cross your eyes until the A's come together.
ABC A B C
If you stare "through" your monitor, the "ABC"s will come together,
with the "A" the closest and the "C" farthest away. Try it with your
eyes crossed and the effect is reversed.
If you think you've got it figured out, try downloading these images. All are set up
for cross-eyed viewing on a high-resolution monitor.
