Denis Pellerin, photo historian and curator of Dr. Brian May's collection of Victorian photographs, will present a lecture at the National Portrait Gallery showing a stereoscopic journey through the studios of photographic artists including Antoine Claudet, William Kilburn, John Jabez Mayall and Thomas Richard Williams. Discover the Victorians as you have never seen them before, in full colour and in glorious 3-D.

Find out more and book tickets on the National Portrait Gallery web site.

Part of the programme of events complementing the recently opened exhibition Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography.

Designed by British mathematician Alan Turing at Bletchley Park during the early stages of World War II, the Turing-Welchman Bombe was an electro-mechanical device used to decipher German communications encoded by the Enigma machine.

What has this to do with 3D?  Our very own Mike Hillyard is part of the Bombe reconstruction team who took 12 years to build the working replica which has been on display and in use at Bletchley Park for the last decade and they are now looking for funds to relocate it.  Some of you will have seen the Bombe during our visit to Bletchley Park and many of you will have seen Mike's 3D show at previous conventions and meetings.  Or even at the 3D theatre which he constructed at Bletchley Park and has been running for the past 10 years.

The National Museum of Computing needs £50,000 to keep the Bombe on the Bletchley Park Estate, and are two thirds of the way there, but time is short to raise the remaining funds by early Tuesday morning.

The reconstruction will be located near to the world-famous working rebuild of Colossus, the 1944 computer that sped up the breaking of Lorenz messages of the German High Command.

Together, the original machines changed the course of history. They are credited with shortening the war by up to two years and saved countless lives. They also paved the way for our digital world.

You can visit the Crowfunder website to find out more and hopefully make a donation in the next few days before the campaign ends at 9:30am next Tuesday 13th March 2018.

If you want to read more and see a picture of Mike check out this article on the Museum and Heritage web site.

Holography is best known for its uncanny ability to record and display three-dimensional objects. Holograms  attract, intrigue, excite and confuse us. They offer another way of viewing the objects around us, and it is unsurprising that this complex optical process attracted artists, almost as soon as it became viable as an imaging process, in the 1960’s.

This exhibition near Earls Court, curated by Andrew Pepper, attempts to explore how artists have examined and exploited the luminous, unsupported, mark, both physically and conceptually. It draws work from the extensive Jonathan Ross holography collection, which has been acquiring a breadth of approaches to the medium from artists for 40 years.

For more details and opening times check out the GALLERY 286 website.

Frank Lorenz, DGS and ISU President has attended our recent conventions and would like to return the favour and invite you to the convention of the German Society for Stereoscopy (DGS).  The convention will take place two weeks after our Buxton convention on 25-27 May 2018.  Enough time to recuperate and hop on a plane to Berlin, Germany for more stereoscopic galore.

"Dear friends of the Stereoscopic Society,

I would like to invite you to this year's DGS convention. We may be a little younger than the Stereoscopic Society, but we will still be celebrating our 90th anniversary.

I hope to welcome some of you in Berlin and I am looking forward to meeting you beforehand in Buxton."

Frank has written us a few travel tips for Berlin

The projection theatre will be in the Alte Pumpe, Lützowstraße 42, 10785 Berlin.
They recommend the Hotel Berlin, Lützowplatz 17, 10785 Berlin 500metres from the theatre.
Frank has prepared us a short 3D video in English, a trailer can be found on YouTube

There are some interesting excursions planned from Friday to Tuesday including to the the 3D Museum in Fehrbellin.

Register for the German DGS 3D Convention in Berlin.
 

Keith Webb has been the Society Librarian for the past 12 years and has decided that the time has come to step down and pass on the mantle to a new Librarian.
The committee on behalf of the entire society thank Keith for his hard work and diligence in carrying out this role for many years and being a valuable member of the committee.  We also thank Keith's wife Joan for her much appreciated support at meetings and conventions running the library table.

Keith has supplied the following appeal for someone to take over the role, ideally a London or Coventry meeting regular, to enable books to be borrowed safely and cost effectively by others attending.

It is a fairly straightforward job (I have a detailed job description and Library documents on a USB flash drive and am available for consultation), ideally for someone who attends Society meetings. The new Librarian would be required to take over after the end of the current meetings season in April in time for the start of the next season in October 2018.

The job entails loaning of Library books and other items to Society members either by post or at Society meetings (a large majority of the Library books, etc. is currently held at the London meetings venue, the remainder held by the Librarian) and keeping a record of all transactions as well as occasionally acquiring new items for the Library (an allowance is made for this) as appropriate.

The Library is an important part of the Society providing the benefit of access by members to 3D publications, etc. and is a satisfying job for an interested member to undertake. The Librarian also attends Society Committee meetings but this is not essential.

Please help this invaluable Society service to continue. If you think that you would be interested in becoming the next Librarian, or know someone who would, feel free to contact me library@stereoscopicsociety.org.uk
or Colin Metherell chairman@stereoscopicsociety.org.uk the Society Chairman.