Stereoscopes!

Have you ever seen one of these?
It's called a stereoscope and it's a late 19th century way of viewing photos in 3-D. Isn't it so cool! And it works really well too, and the images are definitely layered with terrific depths of field.

Bern's grandmother gave her this as a present and with it also came the box containing all the 3-D photographs ...

Such a treasure, yes? The bulk of the photos are Bern's great uncle's 1911 journey around Morocco, Algiers, Spain and Gibraltar and, on top of being a record of Islamic days of yore, - all the burkhas were white back then, did you know? - it's a lovely visual narrative of a very stiff and formal young man gradually unwinding, although we did find it very suspicious that he is most relaxed among little Arab boy goat herders ... and that's a very dapper young fellow he has as a traveling companion ... but far be it from me to cast aspersions on other folk's great uncles!

The photos are such treasures too; truly historical documents. All the great Islamic mosques and palaces, hotels, gardens, market places, town squares, bazaars, et al. And all annotated with date and place on the back, which is just such a handy reference:

Bern with her stereoscope.
See the notes on the back.

I'm trying to excite Bern about the idea of retracing the journey in 2011 and taking photographs in the exact same spots. In fact, I find the idea so exciting myself that, if she doesn't do it, I will.

And there's a - shhh, quiet! - possibility that some of the photos in there were actually taken by Virginia Woolf's fabulously famous eccentric-traveler and photographer aunty; was her name Julie Cameron? Ooh, my memory.

In fact, I'm going to track this one down so let me get back to you on it!

Ah, Wikipedia delivers again: Julia Margaret Cameron!

Now I just have to find the particular photographs! Most of the on-line sites for her albums are pay-for-view, which I'm not doing, but I'll keep looking.