Depth of Field: Historic Stereophotography as a Resource for Landscape Researchers

Abstract

Stereographs (3D photographs) of urban landscapes enjoyed widespread popularity from 1850 to 1920; though many extant stereographs are available in public archives, these images have seen little use in landscape research. This project aims to explore and theorize relationships between stereographs in order to articulate, in three dimensions, the morphological history of an urban landscape. More than 2250 stereographs of the city of Paris were collected, analyzed, and coded by subject; subjects were then located on a map of the city. Analysis revealed different ways in which stereographs relate to one another, pointing to a novel source of spatial and temporal landscape data; mapping revealed several corridors of the city that had been intensively documented, suggesting that a continuous and uninterrupted experience of the historic city in 3D may be possible. Stereographs were found to have significant latent potential for landscape research, and strategies to realize this potential are proposed.