Spot the changes that have taken place in Edinburgh by comparing Victorian and current day views of the same places.  Look at 3D pictures of old Edinburgh and farther afield.   3D pictures, where you perceive depth as well as height and width, were very popular in the 19th Century still amaze today.

Stereoscopes:
In the 1850s photographers devised a way of reproducing this illusion of 3D from two-dimensional photographs.  One picture is taken then the camera moved 65mm to the side (the distance between two eyes) to take a second picture of the same subject.   Then when both pictures are viewed by separate eyes using lenses or a mirror the viewer sees the subject recorded in three dimensions.  Later on cameras were devised to take two images simultaneously and this created a better illusion of 3D.  In our exhibition you will see some of the earliest examples of these, taken in Edinburgh by local photographers from about 1855 onwards, making them as old as our Camera Obscura.  You will also enjoy more recent stereo views, lenticular 3D pictures, mirror 3D and anaglyph (red and blue) 3D pictures that you view through special glasses.

Anaglyph:
These are made by taking two pictures 65mm apart, as in other stereo images.  Then you print one image in blue and the other image of the ‘stereo pair’ in red on top of the first one so it makes one red and blue image.   When you wear red and blue glasses, one eye only sees one image and the other eye sees the other image creating a 3D picture. Anaglyph comic books and movies were popular in the 1950s, and anaglyph photos are still made today.