Seeing double? Artist shows stereoscopic photography

By Jane Ford

Using a stereoscope -- a Victorian device for viewing pictures to make them three-dimensional -- photographer Susan Lutz revives on old tradition and gives a new look to contemporary city scapes and interiors. Lutz, also a video artist and documentary film maker, has created more than 200 stereoscopic cards which will be on exhibit at the Fayerweather Gallery from Jan. 31 to Feb. 25.

Each card has two photographs side-by-side and taken simultaneously from slightly different angles; viewing them through a stereoscope allows the result to appear three-dimensional.

At the opening reception Feb. 4 at 5:30 p.m., all 200 cards in the collection will be available for viewing through various forms of vintage viewers as well as other types of stereoscopic devices. During the remainder of the exhibition the different parts of the collection will rotate.

Among the assorted groupings of cards in the Susan Lutz Stereo View Company collection are the Reproductive Cycle of the Amorphophallus Titanum, Domestic Interiors, New York Rooftop Views, Flora and Fauna, Stereoscopic Views of the Los Angeles Basin, Venetian Waterways and Popular Views of the Los Angeles Basin.

Lutz, who received her undergraduate degree from U.Va., also shows her interest in the creations of times past in her documentary film project in progress, "Sunday Dinner.² During a two-week residency in February at U.Va.'s McIntire Department of Art, Lutz will be teaching photography and film students, several of whom will have an opportunity to work on "Sunday Dinner." They will film activities on various farms and locations around the Shenandoah Valley that document people performing daily tasks using techniques that by today's standards would be considered old-fashioned.

These activities "evoke memories of and a way of life which is quickly disappearing," Lutz said. A love of the process and the superiority of the finished product compel some people to continue to make bread, churn apple butter and smoke country hams.

Lutz, who earned a master of fine arts from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, will lecture on her work at 5 p.m. Feb. 10 in Room 160 Campbell Hall. Her photography and film/video works have been exhibited internationally, including broadcast on The History Channel and A&E networks.