Intro Earlier this year I shared a set of early 1900s stereograph photos of Silver Lake that I picked up at a local antique store. On a recent visit back, I came across another batch from the same era (1914–1916). I’m pretty sure these are part of the same set as the ones I found before!! Either I missed them the first time around, or the collector who runs the booth set them out later. […]
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In April 1906, San Francisco was hit by a massive earthquake followed by fires that burned for three days. Entire blocks downtown were destroyed and thousands of people ended up in makeshift refugee camps across the city. Not long after, the H. C. White Company, a stereograph publisher based in Vermont, released a series of stereoview cards documenting the disaster. They produced around 37 cards in total, each showing a different view of the city’s […]
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Intro: How I Found These Stereographs Just yesterday, I was digging through an antique/consignment shop in San Diego when I found a stack of stereograph cards. At first, I thought they’d be the usual Keystone or Underwood & Underwood mass-market cards I always come across, but these were different! No publisher stamps. No world landmarks. Just handwritten notes. When I read the captions, I realized they were from Silver Lake, Los Angeles, and dated around […]
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Introduction: The Original 3D “Virtual Reality” Over the weekend, I came across an 1890s stereoscope viewer and a small stack of stereoview cards at an antique store. It immediately stood out—not just for its age, but because it represents the 19th-century version of 3D viewing, long before VR headsets or television existed. If you’ve ever used a View-Master or tried a modern VR headset, you’ve experienced the same principle at work. In the late 1800s, […]
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Introduction There’s something magical about stumbling upon a camera you’ve never seen before, especially one that feels like it holds a story. That’s exactly how I felt when I found my Stereo Realist camera. I had never heard of the Stereo Realist before then, but holding it felt like holding a piece of photographic history. It represented a milestone in the evolution of 3D imaging technology — a bridge between the past and what would […]
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