Stereoscopy is Good For You: Life in 3D is the latest book from Brian’s London Stereoscopic Company (LSC). It is a collection of ‘stereo’ pictures taken by people all over the world throughout the pandemic. There are some fantastic images in the book as you can see here (they are best viewed with Brian’s Owl viewer, available here). One vision Then downstairs is Queen in 3-D, encompassing not just being with Queen on and off the road, but my history with 3-D. I can’t wait to see how people react to this. As part of the promotion for Brian'sforthcoming bookStereoscopyIs Good For You: Life in 3-D, a leadingLondon photography gallery shallruna five monthexhibition,showcasing some of the captivatingimagery. I’m thrilled that London’s prestigious PROUD gallery will be hosting our exhibition for a massive FIVE MONTHS. The stars seem to be aligning – this is IT ! “Stereoscopy Is Good For You” will put 3-D firmly on the map in 2022 !”

New Brian May stereo photography book is here - Amateur

As well as many images from Europe, Stereoscopy is Good for You features work from farther-flung places. ‘Stereoscopy seems to be popular in Japan, certainly in my sphere of influence, and there are some great photographers with whom I communicate with directly. Working on this project, I learned all over again that the photographs we take say a lot more about US than the subject we capture. Viewing the stereoscopic work of others, we find ourselves completely transported to the place and time when their picture was taken. We live in a stereoscopic universe. We’re just not aware of it. You look around and see everything solid in an amazing picture which your brain has generated. And it’s produced from these two slightly different images, which your eyes are capturing every second. We take still pictures to capture what’s around us but it’s a very poor capture. If you take a stereoscopic picture, it’s something which you can walk into at any time in the future and experience echoes of what you felt at that moment. Very strong echoes.You feel a great responsibility when it comes to choosing the images. I don’t like being judgemental, and we just wanted to distil the best of everybody’s work. As it turned out, most of the people who submitted work are represented in some way, but of course some people put in irresistible work, so were featured more than once.’ But I think the book is such an important statement – I mean I wanted to make sure that everyone of you, to begin with, has a copy of the book. If you don’t have a copy of the book, we will sort that okay – but I hope you enjoy your copies. Visitorswill view the visuals in the splendour of 3-D through the stereoscopic OWL viewerdesigned by Brian Mayhimself.

Brian May: “Stereoscopy Is Good For You” – Book Signing

But I am so, so proud of all of you – all of you contributors to the book – it’s incredible – it’s much better that I even imagined and the book started off quiet small and it grew and grew and suddenly I realised it was is very important because this is a statement of what stereoscopy is in the 21st century. The range of subjects in these entirely new stereo pictures is immense, with more than 100 contributing photographers finding inspiration in Nature, people, pets, architecture, the sky above, and much more. This book is set to become a lasting testament to the evocative power of 3-D photography. This long-awaited book is now heading towards release. All of you in our stereoscopic community know all about this – but I’m hoping to reach a million table-tips with this one – the work of a small army of artists that I’m so proud of !! Details to follow !!! Wait til you see the cover image – courtesy of Jane Sabini – in 3-D !!! I now have an indelible disposition to look at scenes and see them “properly” in stereo. A lot of people go through almost their whole lives without realising they have this wonderful depth of perception. My job as the stereoscopic evangelist is to go, “No, there is a way you can transform your pictures into a format that will enable you to enjoy them forever as you did at the time of capture.”’

The images were of two photographs of the same subject, taken from viewpoints about the same distance apart as human eyes. By looking at these images through the stereoscope, the two pictures appeared as one 3D image. For this book, we put out an invitation to this global community to send us their stereoscopic memories of life during the Covid Years. We all carry them around with us. If phone makers can put three cameras on here (he holds up his iPhone) it would be dead easy for them to put lenses one across the other.’ Another revival came in the 1980s, and in 2009 “we had [the film] Avatar and every TV set you bought was 3D-ready. Where is it now? It’s all disappeared.”

Stereoscopy Is Good For You – Contributors’ Event Stereoscopy Is Good For You – Contributors’ Event

A wondrous immersive exhibition celebrating the magic of stereoscopic 3-D photography in the 21st Century I worked with my “great accomplice” Denis Pellerin, spending hours and hours editing the images into a format which would be both beautiful and comfortable to look at.’ The book credits Charles Wheatstone as the inventor of the stereoscope. “He was denied his proper place, other people claimed that they had invented it, and some of those falsehoods survived until quite recently,” said May. The book sets the record straight, he added. Brian May says : This is a thrill, and a first, to do a book signing session in my own store. I’m hoping this will lead to stereoscopy having a permanent home in London for the first time since the 19th century. The majority of LSC’s books have been historical,’ he says, ‘but this book is about photography for the common person, just as AP has set out its own agenda over the years. These are all amateurs who took part. They take stereoscopic pictures because they get a thrill, or a feeling of comfort or connection, or want to capture something that will evoke very strong emotions when they look at it later in life.’ It’s a hard lifeIt’s amazing – I feel a little bit lost for words – I was quite nervous . My Press night last night – that’s where I’m sort of speaking to people who don’t know what stereo is…Tonight I‘m speaking to a room full of of experts in stereoscopy – right?! So I have to be really careful! I only use one, i3D Steroid for the iPhone (for Android phones, it’s called 3D Steroid). This is a very nice app and is very cheap, considering the developer, Masuji Suto, updates it for free. Suto-san is always open to suggestions too, a proper genius, and his pictures are also featured in Stereoscopy is Good for You.’ See the app store for your phone: i3DSteroid on the App Store/ 3DSteroid on Google Play. Major new exhibition The whole of the LSC is only about six people, and five of us were involved in the book,’ he explains, ‘so it wasn’t a big team but it was a very hard-working one.

Stereoscopy Is Good For You: Life in 3D Exhibition

Brian then talks about his love for analogue photography. He first got the bug when developing and printing images with his father in the family darkroom. He has also memorable stereo images on analogue gear. As part of the promotion for Brian’s forthcoming book Stereoscopy Is Good For You: Life in 3-D, a leading London photography gallery shall run a five-month exhibition, showcasing some of the captivating imagery. Brian is now 75, but shows little sign of slowing down. He continues to tour with Queen, as well as doing solo work and, of course, is a committed stereoscopy evangelist. So does he personally find stereoscopy is good for him? And there must be something in us which makes us yearn for the old kind of photography. Digital can Proud Galleries in collaboration with Brian May’s London StereoscopicCompany presentSTEREOSCOPY IS GOOD FOR YOU:LIFE IN 3-D

Stereoscopy turned out to be a “rollercoaster ride with peaks and periods of total oblivion and neglect”, he added. After the Victorians, it enjoyed a revival during the first world war, and again in the 1950s when the young May became enraptured. May, who has a PhD in astrophysics, is in the process of acquiring another set of images that will make his collection of stereos the biggest in the world. He is transferring all of them into the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy.