3D and animated lenticular photography: between utopia and entertainment

306 Pages·2015·9.279 MB·English

by  Timby, Kim

KIM TIMBY
3D AND ANIMATED LENTICULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
STUDIES IN THEORY AND HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
VOL. 5
Publication Series of the Center for the Study in Theory and History
of Photography (TGF) at the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich
Edited by Bettina Gockel
International Advisory Board
Michel Frizot
Emeritus Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research
(CNRS), School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris
Robin Kelsey
Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography, Department of History of
Art & Architecture, Harvard University
Wolfgang Kemp
Emeritus Professor of Art History, Institute of Art History, University of Hamburg
Charlotte Klonk
Professor of Art and New Media, Institute of Art History and Visual Studies,
Humboldt University, Berlin
Shelley Rice
Arts Professor, Department of Photography and Imaging and Department
of Art History, New York University
Kelley Wilder
Reader in Photographic History, De Montfort University, Leicester
Herta Wolf
Professor of History and Theory of Photography, Institute of Art History,
University of Cologne
KIM TIMBY
3D AND ANIMATED

LENTICULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
BETWEEN UTOPIA AND
ENTERTAINMENT
Printed with generous financial support from the Dr. Carlo Fleischmann Foundation
(see www.dcff.org) in Zurich and from the Kaspar M. Fleischmann Project to
Support Research on Photography at the Chair for the History of the Fine Arts,
Institute of Art History of the University of Zurich.
ISBN 978-3-11-041306-9
eISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-044806-1
eISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-044795-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de
© 2015 Walter De Gruyter GmbH Berlin/Boston
Cover: Detail of a 3D portrait without its lenticular screen (see figure 59 and 62), private collection.
Editing of the Series: Martin Steinbrück
Photo Editing: Patrizia Munforte
Design and Layout: Petra Florath, Berlin
Printing and Binding: DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH, Altenburg
This paper is resistant to aging (DIN/ISO 9706).
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
CONTENTS
9 Introduction
23 Chapter 1: Stereoscopy without a Stereoscope
43 Chapter 2: Cinema in a Single Photo
63 Chapter 3: A Window onto the World
93 Chapter 4: 3D Portraiture and the Integral-Image Utopia
133 Chapter 5: Lights, Color, Action! Point-of-Sale Advertising
155 Chapter 6: A Lenticular Image in Every Home: Promotional Premiums
183 Chapter 7: The 3D Postcard
221 Chapter 8: The Limits of Lenticular Photography
247 Conclusion
251 Notes
297 Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Learning about lenticular photography has been a pleasure in particular thanks to
the kindness and hospitality of the inventors, photographers, and other talented
individuals involved in this field who have opened their doors to me over the years. As
this book nears completion, my warmest thoughts go to Antoinette Angénieux, David
Burder, Roland Gardin, Roger Karampournis, Marie Soulatzky, Guy Harmand, and
especially Michèle Bonnet, who was extremely generous in her support and her
investment in recounting her father’s story. It is an immense pleasure to be able to
share this book with you and your families.
Although lenticular images were meant to be seen and admired, historical exam-
ples are hidden away in homes, museums, and archives. This book wouldn’t have been
possible without the assistance of numerous individuals who shared their images or
the existence of relevant information. In particular, it was a privilege to work with
Sylvain Besson, Gérard Bierry, Sylvain Charles, Christian Passeri, and François Cheval
at the Musée Nicéphore Niépce. Éric Bourgougnon, Élisabeth Guimard, and Julie
Corteville were also especially accommodating in helping me to access and publish
the rich collections of the Musée Français de la Photographie in Bièvres. For their
invaluable assistance, I am also grateful to Olivier Auboin-Vermorel, Paul Bennar-
roche, Barry Blundell, Alain Bonnet, Katia Busch (Société Française de Photographie),
Olivier Cahen, Marie-Sophie Corcy (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers),
Marie-Claude Delmas (Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle), Sabrina Esmer-
aldo, Jean-Marc Fournier, David Janzow, Michèle Jasnin (Musée de la Publicité), Serge
Kakou, Henry Koilski, Gérard Latapie and Bernard Nerin (Éditions Doucet), Gérard
Lévy, Laurent Mannoni (Cinémathèque Française), Brian May, Alison Morrison-Low
(National Museums of Scotland), Leroy Nordby, Pierre Parreaux, Denis Pellerin, Susan
Pinsky and David Starkman, Arturo Silva, Gina Soulier, Bruno Tartarin, Sylvie Treille
(Médiathèque de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine), and Dominique Versavel (Biblio-
thèque Nationale de France). My thoughts also go to Peter Palmquist, who gave me my
first stereoview as well as the delightful animated image of a man on the telephone
pictured in these pages. I am sorry that he wasn’t able to see the completion of this
8 | ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
book and share in the discovery that both women and men worked behind lenticular
portrait cameras.
Catherine Tambrun and Françoise Reynaud were there from the start of this
project, and I am indebted to their initial investigation of lenticular photography the
opportunity they provided to begin work on it at the Musée Carnavalet. Michel Frizot
has also followed my research from its earliest stages and been especially generous in
sharing his intellectual curiosity and appreciation for all photographs great and
small. For their probing questions, enlightening comments, and support at different
stages of my research on lenticular imagery, I would also like to express my thanks to
Jacques Aumont, Jan Baetens, Clément Chéroux, Catherine Clark, Françoise Denoyelle,
Elizabeth Edwards, Helen Green, Laurent Guido, Mathilde Kiener, Bertrand Lavédrine,
Olivier Lugon, Anne McCauley, Laureline Meizel, Vanessa Schwartz, Graham Smith,
Valérie Vignaux, and Kelley Wilder, and my students at the École du Louvre and the
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. As my research took the form of a book,
the unfailing encouragement, advice, and friendship of Natalie Adamson have been
precious. I am also particularly appreciative of the support of my editors Bettina
Gockel and Martin Steinbrück, the patient editorial work of Patrizia Munforte and
Dorothea Kast, the attentive layout of Petra Florath, and the permission to publish
images in this book granted by different individuals and institutions.
Friends and family members too numerous to name here have been wonderfully
enthusiastic about my research and active image scouts. Among them, I would like to
salute Mark, Deborah, and William Timby, Katie Murphy, and especially Arthur Weil,
who brought me music throughout this project as well as lenticular images from
every location around the world where a conference on differential equations was
held. To all of my friends and family, colleagues and readers: enjoy!
INTRODUCTION
Since the invention of photography, one of the most seductive predictions about its
future has been that it will one day provide a completely lifelike image, representing
the world as our senses perceive it—especially all of its movement and depth. Today
this dream seems as potent as ever, with the magic of Harry Potter including photo-
graphs showing their subjects moving about and waving at the viewer and “3D” movies
vying for our attention in theaters. One of the ways inventors have pursued three-
dimensional and animated images is via “lenticular” photography. Most people have
seen examples of lenticular images, even if they are unfamiliar with their technical-
sounding name. They are regularly used on packaging (DVD boxes were a recent favor-
ite), as catchy gift cards, or as postcards that make visual puns as they are tilted.
Examined closely, these images have a distinctive finely ridged plastic surface com-
prised of miniature lenses; the lenses ensure that separate views, interlaced under-
neath, are perceived individually from different angles. More high-tech uses of the
lenticular process include camera, television, or computer screens providing three-
dimensional vision without special glasses—a technology that has been touted as
becoming the next big thing for years.
Lenticular photography has a surprisingly sophisticated history. Its technical
invention and reinvention were tied to groundbreaking research, from color photo-
graphy and photomechanical printing to plastics. Those who commercialized it associ-
ated it with other popular visual media, including early cinema, free promotional
premiums, point-of-sale advertising, picture magazines, and amateur photography.
Retracing how this seemingly obscure technology was entwined in the intellectual,
material, and popular culture of the twentieth century plunges us into a revealing
example of how photography was constantly updated to better respond to longstand-
ing technical challenges as well as to satisfy very contemporary needs and desires—
not least of which to awe and amuse.
10 | INTRODUCTION
PERCEPTION AND ILLUSION
The story of lenticular photography is rooted in the growing interest in the workings
of visual perception starting in the early decades of the nineteenth century. How
long does the eye retain the trace of light that enters it? What do we perceive when
different stimuli are viewed in rapid succession? How do our two eyes work together
to provide a single image of the world? And what makes us see the diversity of colors
we do? Scientists were constructing knowledge of vision as an experience resulting
from collaboration between the eyes and the brain. These studies led to experiments
imitating our perception of the world using images. This book is particularly con-
cerned with simulation of the perception of movement and of depth. If the brain
understood movement by synthesizing things seen at closely spaced intervals in
time, as the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau reasoned in 1832, an illusion of move-
ment could be induced by presenting the eyes with a succession of drawings of the
same object in slightly modified positions.1 Similarly, in 1838, the English scientist
1: Anonymous, Phenakistiscope with original viewing mirror, ca. 1834, Cinémathèque
Française, Paris.