Lenticular Photographs

[mbarrick]

len·tic·u·lar  (lĕn-tĭk′yə-lər) adj. 1. Shaped like a biconvex lens. 2. Of or relating to a lens.

What is a lenticular photograph? Aren't all photos made using a lens? Yes (I won't get into why the pin-hole in a pin-hole camera should be considered a lens), but not all are displayed using a lens. Remember those ridged cards you'd get in Cracker Jacks or cereal boxes that you could flip back and forth to see two images? Those are lenticular photographs. The ridges are bascially curved lenses that cause the light to refract. Underneath the lenses two or more photographs are interlaced and the angle of refraction determines which one you see.

It occurred to me last night that this would be an interesting way to display my stereoscopes in a gallery situation and also to create neat little 3-D "art cards". These things have been around nearly a century, so I can't take any credit for doing anything new (as a matter of fact, I just found out today in researching this that the North American distribution of the 1000th issue of Rolling Stone coming this May will have a 3-D cover using this technique). But of course, it's not about the medium but what I do with it. It's not like photography, painting, and drawing are new either.