Crowdsourced Archival Research on New Slides: Preparing for War

The Jordan/Ference Collection has recently acquired the last of the "Poilu, Balloons & Gouraud" collection. Now we need your help in putting the puzzle pieces together! Join us for some crowdsourced archival research!

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Remembrance Sunday 2022: New Jordan/Ference Collection Sets

Remembrance Sunday 2022: New Jordan/Ference Collection Sets

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Highlights from the Honorat Negatives (dans la région de VERDUN)

A preview of 10 highlights from the Honorat Collection, consisting of nearly 200 examples of amateur French stereography of the Great War.

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Remembrance Day 2021: Colonials, Hospitals & Command by Cl. Gueidan

This year's Remembrance Day post focuses on the work of Cl. Gueidan, a stereographer who sold some of his non-stereo work to the Section photographique de l'armée. He took amazing stereos of High Command, Marsouins (colonial marines), hospitals, ruins...

So it’s been a minute. Actually, it’s been nearly a year since my last blog post; I hope my readership will understand. It’s been a busy time. I’m now managing Great War in 3D, the home-base of the Jordan/Ference Collection. A few days ago, on Remembrance Sunday, we launched our searchable image gallery, including almost 5,000 items from the physical collection. The collection has grown so large…

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The Irving Theatre: VistaScreen's rarest set shows London's first strip joint

The rarest, and today generally most expensive, VistaScreen set ever produced features The Irving Theatre. Far from what you'd think of when you think "West End Theatre", however, the Irving was London's first proper strip club - and looked amazing.

Nota Bene: If the title of this post and header image do not make this blatantly obvious, this post concerns 10 stereoviews of erotic performers at work. The Irving Theatre was a strip joint during the year 1957. If you are at work and work in a prudish environment, or for that matter if you take a dim view of sex workers in general, you might want to either save this one for later, or skip it…

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Views from Various Trenches, Part II of II (Remembrance Day 2020)

The second half of my third Remembrance Day post, a day late but with more sleep, picks up where the last one left off and remembers combatants from five further countries.

Morning has broken, faded, and gone. It’s a gloomy afternoon in Brooklyn, and I’ll be bringing you the five combatants I didn’t get to last night. I mean this morning. I napped for over four hours. I feel guilty for that – still so much to do! Much of my country is slacking off today for “Veterans Day“, and sadly, I understand this, having suffered through American public and Catholic school…

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Views from Various Trenches, Part I of II (Remembrance Day 2020)

The first 1/2 of my third Remembrance Day post explores my friendship with the man who inspired this blog, as well as showing some scenes worth remembering!

One-hundred and two years ago at this very minute, the guns fell silent across Europe. Tens of millions of young men had lost their lives. To what end? Frantz Joseph wanted to win somemilitary victory for the Dual Monarchy during his reign – and particularly wanted full control of Serbia. Gavrilo Princip, a teenager with a gun and some ideology, gave the Emperor his wish by assassinating Archduke…

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VistaScreen Halloween: Stereoviews from Betty Brimmer's Puppet Theatre

VistaScreen Halloween: Stereoviews from Betty Brimmer’s Puppet Theatre

When Betty Brimmer was just a wee girl, she went mushroom picking in the forest near her house. There, she was captured by a Satanic cult and subjected to ritual abuse. This led to her possession by a demonic entity which never left her. After her escape from the woodland coven, she obsessively studied the art of dollmaking. This obsession became a business, and soon it was puppets, not dolls.…

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Indigenous Peoples' Day: Wickenburg Massacre and White Perspective

T.H. O'Sullivan's portrayals of Indigenous peoples are indisputably amongst the most lauded. But are they also problematic? Today is Indigenous Peoples' Day, and I will utilize this opportunity to examine pervasive white perspectives.

Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, celebrated both as a rejection of a federal holiday celebrating genocidal degenerate Christopher Columbus, and as an opportunity to enrich global understanding of the Indigenous peoples who once existed on what we now call “The Americas”. I remember the rosy picture painted of Columbus during my public and private schooling. Nice guy, right? Coming over here and…

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Why I Love Amateur Glass Stereoviews: 7 Great War Slides from France

Long-time readers of Brooklyn Stereography should be unsurprised that I love amateur glass stereoviews. In this article, I use a set of seven received earlier this week to highlight exactly why.

Earlier this week, I received a parcel from France, which is always a cause for excitement. This particular parcel contained 7 medium format (6×13 cm) amateur glass stereoviews from the Great War, as well as a cool postcard and a fragile old document that I still haven’t gotten around to translating. But I’ve looked at these slides numerous times since. In doing so, I came to the decision to blog…

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Mystery Box #2: Completely Random European Glass Stereoviews

After opening this box of previously un-looked-at European glass stereoviews, I had to take into account my small Brooklyn flat and make the hard choice to deaccession them from my archive and sell them. This is never a decision I come to lightly.

While there is no format I enjoy more than European glass stereoviews, I tend to enjoy them on the basis of exploring cohesive collections. What I mean by a “cohesive collection” is that the slides are related, and their relation (as well as other clues like captions, notes on boxes, et cetera) offer context to exploring the stereoviews. Although the views in Mystery Box #1are not the greatest,…

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~150 Random European Glass Stereoviews

~150 Random European Glass Stereoviews

As explained in my post on Mystery Box #2 (in which the first 50 slides in the box are displayed), these are a non-cohesive collection of generally well maintained European glass stereoviews. Sold as-is, at a low per-slide rate. Approximately 150 slides at approximately $3 apiece.

This would be a good starter collection for someone collecting art for art’s sake, for someone who is just looking to…

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Raumbild's non-fascistic "Tiere aus aller Welt" (Animals from All Over the World)

Raumbild is most closely associated with Nazi propaganda produced between 1936 and 1945. But after the war, Otto Schönstein's images were much more benign - and I needed a break from heady stuff. So enjoy the lovely animal views of Tiere aus aller Welt!

Otto Schönstein did not set out to be forever remembered as the guy who gave Heinrich Hoffmann a platform for propaganda. Things turned out that way after his first folio, featuring images of Venice, was given two thumbs down from Goebbels. The Ministry of Propaganda basically gave Schönstein a choice: give Hoffmann a 51% stake in the company, or shut down. Of course, he was not blameless; he…

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The BSA: An Inclusive 3D Society for All, from the Curious to the Veterans

The Brooklyn Stereoscopic Association stands out from other groups, in that it is an inclusive, global organization dedicated to teaching AND learning, with minimal censorship and no central leader - come check it out!

The BSA’s First Meeting: 2 August, 4:00 EDT (20:00 GMT) The Brooklyn Stereoscopic Association: A place where everyone belongs.

Less than a month ago, four friends (myself among them) who are veteran 3D hobbyists came together and decided to do something special. It was something that would fill our needs, but also something that would fill a void we had long noticed in the stereography…

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Help identify and analyze these Great War stereoviews, and win 3D swag!

I'm asking you to do my job for me in identifying elements of the 13 Great War amateur stereoviews which comprise the "Neutral Grey Collection". Prizes!

Dedicated to the memory of Anthony Paul Brooks, better known amongst his mates as Pookie, 23 December 1980 – 8 July 2010. He loved games, and he loved the military. Requiescat in Pace.

About two months ago, along with hundreds of glass views and some regular contact-printed stereoviews, I received the 13 cards we’ll be focusing on here. Instead of contact printing so that the images were…

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Nudes from the Weimar Republic: Guest Post by Stacey Doyle Ference

In the first full-on guest post on Brooklyn Stereography, I allowed my beautiful wife Stacey to write about some beautiful nudes by a nameless photographer.

Recently, my husband Ian, having noticed that I took to these stereograms as soon as they arrived, suggested I compose a few words on them, since I was struck by the beauty of these particular stereoviews. I’m not a stereography aficionado myself, but I do have to say that these amateur images struck me with their ageless beauty.

These images combine two of my interests, the first being early…

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Eastbourne Model Village: Benjamin White's Masterwork in 3D

An awful mood turned pleasant due to some of my VistaScreen 3D collection - most notably Eastbourne Model Village from the late 1950s.

This morning was the sort of morning that would make Saint Francis of Assisi kick babies – at least for me. About six weeks ago, I had an initial planning meeting with the narcissistic president who lords over the local stereographic society; our goal was to determine whether a 5-hour lecture series broken into 3 parts, with over 300 Third Reich stereoviews to discuss. In order to make sure that…

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