Like many would-be creatives upon graduating from college, I brushed the hayseeds out of my hair (some of them, anyway), crammed my belongings into the back of a friend’s Honda Civic, and headed for the Big Apple. It was a wonderful, terrifying, rewarding, depressing, all-around not-to-be-missed 25 years of my life.
After a few months working retail at a now-defunct art store (R.I.P., Pearl Paint), I worked my contact list diligently and managed to land a job at the New-York Historical Society (NOT defunct and currently thriving, so go visit). It was a place I’d happily call home for 10 years or so, off and on, in various positions, one of which was assistant in the Prints and Photographs division.
One of my first tasks there was to rehouse a large collection of stereoscopic views from the 19th and early 20th Century. It was fascinating material and I learned more about history while doing that than I did in all my years of formal education combined.
Tucked away with the rest of the stereo collection was a small group of what I later learned were Stereo Realist slides, donated by an individual 20 or 30 years prior. Most were views documenting the photographer’s life, like everyone’s personal snap shots. But some of it featured oddly fascinating details, like a shot of the bottom of his closet, lined with shoes, or his basement furnace. They weren’t “art” photography per se, but painted a vivid and sometimes touching portrait of his life nonetheless, occasionally with a Diane Arbus-like weirdness.
Until then, I had been familiar only with professionally made stereo views, such as View-Master reels, or mass-produced stereographs. The idea that there had once been a mass-market camera that allowed people to create their OWN stereo views was mind-blowing to me. I was hooked.
Back in the Stone Ages of the early ’90s, there was no Google to search with, no eBay to buy with, virtually no Internet at all. So I dutifully did my research in books and magazines (Stereo World was, and still is, a great resource) hoping for a day when I might find one.
Now here’s where things enter into stranger-than-fiction territory. Once in a blue moon, I’ll buy a lottery ticket, usually only when it gets into nine-figure territory (I can’t be bothered with only ten or twenty million; I’d blow through that in a year and end up on the street). And for the first and only time in my life, I hit four numbers, a $100 payout. This was a significant amount for a starving artist/museum worker, so I was pretty stoked.
Back then, there were still a few thrift/junk shops on the Upper West Side that hadn’t been driven out by skyrocketing rents or real-estate developers. An inveterate pack-rat, I’d occasionally nose through one on my lunch hour. So it was there, the day after my modest lottery windfall, that I saw my first Stereo Realist in the wild, parked there in the back of a glass case near the register. It still had it’s original leatherette case, a bit chewed up, but mostly intact, and even sported it’s original flash attachment.
After a weird “am I dreaming?” moment, I cleared my throat and tried to nonchalantly ask the owner for the price without betraying my interest (nothing had price tags in this place, pretty sure they just made up prices on the spot).
“How much for the Realist?”
The owner puckered his mouth, sizing me up. “$110.”
I nodded slowly, trying to look unimpressed. I asked to see it, turned it around a few times, opened it up appraisingly ( as if there was a chance in hell I wasn’t going to buy it). I reached into my wallet and brought out a sad-looking $10 dollar bill and plopped it down. “Hold it for me for ten minutes?”
Another mouth pucker, a shrug, and finally a nod. I said thanks and bolted across the street to the news shop where I’d bought the ticket. They cashed it and I was back out the door before they could finish saying “Congratula—“
After somehow digging out enough extra cash from my pockets and backpack to cover the tax, I completed my purchase and walked back to work in euphoric disbelief. There were a heck of a lot more practical things I should have used that money for (like maybe rent or food) but I don’t think I’ve ever made a better purchase.
I’ve logged a lot of miles with that old Realist in the years since. It’s taken some hits along the way, once losing it’s flip-up lens cap in a horrifying tripod accident (forgive me, Ghost of David White). But miraculously, it kept on working. They were built like tanks. Sadly, I haven’t run a roll of film through it in several years. But I have no doubt that after a little cleaning, it would fire away like the day it rolled off the assembly line.
As I build this site, I’ll share a few shots I’ve taken with it over the years. I’m no great photographer, but if you shoot enough, along the way you occasionally snap off a good one. If nothing else, someday someone might look through them and trace the course of a quiet life. Nothing fancy, but occasionally interesting. And of course, all in glorious 3D.
