Midcentury Stereopanorama with Eric Drysdale: Look and See the 1950s in 3-D!

• Art/Photo

For over 20 years, writer and comedian Eric Drysdale has been collecting photographs from midcentury America taken by amateurs with the Stereo Realist 3-dimensional camera system. This remarkable technology was something like the ’50s version of virtual reality, pairing Kodak’s Kodachrome film with a precision viewer to deliver uncannily realistic, full-color, three-dimensional images.

During the Stereo Realist’s heyday in the early 1950s, the mass-market 3-D camera was being used in hundreds of thousands of American households but the technology has been largely forgotten.

Eric has narrowed his collection of tens of thousands of these amazing images to about 150 of the best, and you’ll see them the way they were meant to be seen: in fully restored high-quality vintage stereoscopic viewers. From the deck of the Queen Elizabeth II to the hair salon of a Dallas department store, From Weeki Wachee’s ‘Mermaid Springs,’ to the paneled basements of Wisconsin, this intimate salon will give you 90 minutes in the 1950s. It’s the closest to time travel you’re likely to get.

Strictly limited to 14 guests.