I am thinking for the Rethink unit...STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY. i have colected on and off for a number of years and have recently via Brian May discovered the work of 19th C. photographer: TR Williams. Not only do we share initials, we also share the same birthday, a further connection that pushes me to follow his work closer for this unit.

having bought a stereoscopic camera - an 1950s WRAY Stereo Graphic, I have started to practice with this new way of working.

"In the Larder" by T.R. Williams's "First Series" c.1854. Albumen Stereoview

What is a Stereoview?

Stereoscopic Photography is not new. Examples of the practice date back to the start of the commercial photography with portraits and landscapes from around the world being sold in Europe as early as the mid 1840s.

It works due to "binocular vision" what each eye sees separately is combined by the brain into a singular image with depth perception. A "Stereoscopic Camera" features two lenses spaced approximately the distance between the human eyes apart, and produces two separate photographs at the same moment in time. Printed and presented side-by-side, and viewed in a "Stereo Viewer" a Three Dimensional image is created.

This is a practice that gained great popularity during the Industrial Revolution with Stereo-Views created to show the world, famous people, family and friends, comical scenes, fashion of the era, and risque scenes and sold for small cost on a large scale. There are also examples of its possible inclusion into eye tests. Going out of fashion near the end of the nineteenth century with the invent of cinema, it has come and gone ever since being used both in still and the moving image, until most recently the rise of 3D Cinema.

The Creation of Stereo-Views

In the creation of the stereo-views fi have realised that the rules of composition i usually follow must be rethought, until now photography has been a Two Dimensional genre for me, and what works for 2D composition does not necessarily work in Three Dimensions, looking great flat but boring and lifeless 3D.

TRW: The Project

TR Williams produced a study in the village of his marriage of the traditional village of the day, before the grips of the industrial revolution took hold. I have decided to do the same, focusing on the town of my own marriage and looking at the original list of 59 images and captions by Williams, applying them to 2017 Aylesbury. Some will have stayed the same, some will be reinterprteted in a very new way, and some may not exist in any form. for those I will present blank frames if needed, the abscence of their existance. He also produced studies of still lifes, portraiture and pictorial landscapes, and was heavily influenced by the Dutch Masters. Due to this I plan to also follow my own influences in the fine art world and draw refrence as often as I can to artists such as Edward Hopper, LS Lowry, Norman Cornish, and Matisse.