Pavel Scheufler
Stereophotography in the Kingdom of Bohemia
The aim of the study is to provide the basic information on the phenomenon of stereophotography in the first eighty years of the development of this medium in the lands of the Bohemian Crown. The author has focused most attention on the beginnings of the spreading of this image phenomenon, which he has illustrated giving the examples of the most important figures (František Fridrich, František Krátký, Jindřich Eckert). The earliest types of stereo images are stereo daguerreotypes and stereo ambrotypes set adjusted in cassettes, directly equipped with a hole for viewing. At the end of the 1880s, stereo photographs started to be copied by printing using the processes of Woodburytype and collotype. The picture quality of cheap zincographic stereo photographs after 1900 gradually declined, which heralded a loss of interest in this process. The tradition of the interest in stereo photographs was then maintained by machines of the Kaiser-Panorama type, when the viewers were seated each at his/her hole along the perimeter of a polygon and watched the changing images thanks to a moving mechanism. Already in the 1860s, this mechanism began to be incorrectly labelled as ‘panorama’. Currently, historical stereo photographs have enjoyed great attention thanks to a renewed interest in 3D projections, with which they have been erroneously connected.
Key words: Bohemian Lands, 19th century, cultural history, photography, stereo photography
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