3d Photography

Cucklington, Somerset, England.

(Red & Cyan glasses are required to see the 3d effect)

I became interested in 3d photography (anaglyphs) sometime in the autumn of 2002. I was inspired by PierreGideon's web site and, as soon as I learned how to do it, was hooked.

Initially I took pictures of my house and garden to get the idea, some of my early pictures don't look so good now but its all part of the learning process. I only had one camera so I could only photograph subjects that wouldn't move, churches for example (that's also why so many of the early 3d's I made are void of people). I also fashioned an attachment to connect to a tripod so I could keep the camera pointing in the right direction when I moved it across for the second picture. After getting the hang of this I decided to invest in a second camera so I could take pictures with moving subjects. This proved to be a bit tricky at first as I had to press the shutter on both cameras at exactly the same time. Again, after a bit of practise, I got to grips with it. Eventually I learnt to do away with the tripod altogether. All of my pictures are now taken hand held.

After building up a small collection of 3d pictures a project began to take shape all by itself. I gave it some thought and decided to make an attempt to record all the villages and towns of my home county of Somerset in 3d. Every Sunday I would venture off around the county, turning off of the main highways, and discover lots of quaint and well kept towns and villages.

Eventually I thought all these pictures ought to be available to view to everyone and so the idea of the web site was born. After obtaining quotes that out stretched my income I decided to learn how to build my own web site and eventually Somerset in 3d was born in October 2005.

For the next 5 years I would upload a new town or village, adding other features along the way, such as; Speakin Zummerzet (How to speak and understand the Somerset accent), a Media page (showing any media interest that had been created) and my very own anaglyph software, the Woolly Anaglyph Maker (created by good friend Phil Hand). I also introduced a second gallery of anaglyphs for other places I had visited outside of Somerset.

Then the recession came along and the economic situation meant the project had to be put on hold.

After a while I took the decision to join Flickr and to upload my 3d's there. It's going to take some time putting them all on as there are over 7,000 of them. All in good time.

I still do normal 2d photography and enjoy that too, but my main interest will always be 3d. I love exploring places and looking for 3d's to take and then creating the photograph once I'm back at home.

If you've never tried it yourself I encourage you to give it a go. It's a lot easier than you may think.

Below are a few more 3d's to look at. You will need a pair of red & cyan glasses to see the 3d effect.