Photographic 'art' has grown over time to expand beyond the technology and novelty of recording images on film. It has become a medium of expression, a forum through which the photographer as an artist can communicate without involving the viewer in the technology. While a photograph does capture a particular moment in time, it is possible to do so while preserving that moment as a uniquely open experience that allows the viewer opportunity to interpret the event within a more personal context.
In contrast 3D stereo photography (as well as stereography), by its very nature, is technocentric. The viewer must be intimately involved in the technology; wearing funny glasses, staring cross-eyed at the page, gazing off into infinity while focusing on a nearby jumble of color. Once the technology 'comes together' the viewer is presented with an image that is much less open to interpretation than a flat image. Color, texture and other important artistic elements take a back seat to the mind's subconscious need to balance, reach out, measure distance, look over and under things, wonder why the entire image isn't perfectly focused, etc.
A stereo photograph is 'stiff'. Flowers no longer gently wave in the breeze. They are frozen in space. The fully formed image gives the impression of a dynamic environment. The medium itself restrains the subject to an infinitely static presentation. In spite of these 'artistic' limitations, stereo images provide a detailed and realistic record of an experience in a way that a flat photograph never could.
So, whichever direction you're headed across the bridge, ENJOY!
to the 3D Gallery to the Photography Gallery