A VISIT TO OLD KOREA in 1902, No.2 -- Korea As it Was, Captured in 3-D by HERBERT G. PONTING

A RARE SET OF KOREA STEREOVIEWS

The above image is one of 25 stereoviews photographed in early 1902. They were taken by Herbert G. Ponting for the Universal Photo Art Company, an American 3-D publishing firm in Naperville, Illinois.

Not unlike a Wiki-leaks Document Dump, I have decided to make a Soba-leak Photo Dump, and toss the entire, original set of these relatively rare stereoviews up on Flickr.

I am NOT qualified to describe the content of the views, and hereby turn that task over to all of my Korea-loving friends (and enemies) who likewise love old photos, and know a thing or two about what is shown here.

YOU ARE FREE TO... Re-Blog any and all of these Flickr images. From one to 25 views, whatever you need or want, go for it, and use them as you please. You may also re-process, post-process, chop, crop, and do whatever else you want to do with them. Hate 3-D ? No problem. Just pick the best half, and toss the other half to the wind.

For those who are into 3-D, feel free to convert to any style of presentation you want. Keep in mind that you might have to "fix" some views that have matching exposure problems, and minor rotational and alignment issues.

YOUR LUCKY DAY : Tired of finding Old Korean images on the web that are so small they are nearly useless ? You want to enlarge some images to better examine the content , but everything is more pixelated than a Japanese porn video ?

NO PROBLEM. These 7-inch-wide stereoviews were scanned at 1,200 dpi (ppi), and are being posted here at FULL 8+ MB file size --- with every baseline wider than 8,000 pixels. This means you can still work with even one side, and extract useful images for further study or creating cropped-down Blog illustrations.

At such high, working resolution, you will probably see some of the "touch up" and basic repairs I made here and there on many of the views. While my hit-and-run "clean-up job" might not look "professional, my repairs were meant to cover final viewing at true, intended stereoview sizes, for which they are just fine. Anyone wanting to greatly enlarge portions of these images for other graphic applications will have to FINE TUNE, and RE-REPAIR MY REPAIRS until they blend in at the intended viewing sizes.

Keep in mind that the scanned prints are well over 110 years old, and the original processing was all done by hand. The scratches, dust specks, "mirroring" on some dark parts of the emulsion, and other age-related damage are part of the pictures. If you need critical perfection for any of these images, then please do the "restoration work" yourself.

ABOUT THE STEREOVIEWS :

Although at least one other stereo-photographer had taken stereoviews of Korea in the 19th Century, they amounted to nothing but a handful of images, and were printed privately with small distribution.

This early 20th Century group of twenty-five dedicated images by Ponting was the first compiled and cataloged group of Korean views to be sold in North America.

The 1902 negatives were held for a while, until C.H. Graves (President of Universal Photo Art Co.) published them a year later with the 1903 copyright date.

While the Japanese presence can already be seen (see View No.8 with its a mislabeled caption that calls some wives of the occupying Japanese, "Korean Women), the first subjugating Treaties with Japan were still a couple of years off, and the Russo-Japan War had yet to fill Korea's streets and ports with a flood of Japanese Troops and foreign observers.

In spite of the occasional "Japanese intrusion" into these 1902 images, for the most part, they show as good a sampling of people, places, and things as you can fit into 25 pictures.

No's 10 and 11 are two of my favorites, as they include the expressive face of Korean kids.

Ponting would return to Korea for a second time on the eve of the RUSSO-JAPAN WAR, and capture several hundred more negatives of the country. Over time, more than 100 of these images were published by UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD.

These images by Ponting have been mistakenly attributed to both JAMES RICALTON and BURTON HOLMES.

Ponting did almost all of his work in 3-D, and a small sampling of his 1000s of Asian images (taken 1901-1906) can be seen HERE :

♥ www.flickr.com/photos/okinawa-soba/albums/72157629568812867

More about HERBERT PONTING :

♥ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Ponting

More OLD KOREA images for your looky-loo or Blogging use HERE :

♥ www.flickr.com/photos/okinawa-soba/sets/72157604582452397

Cheers !

Some rights reserved

Taken on: October 20, 2016

Tags:

Korea

Old Korea

Korea in 1902

Rare Set of Stereoviews

3-D Images

Stereoviews

Stereographs

3dp

Parallel

Parallel View

Herbert G. Ponting

Herbert Ponting

H.G. Ponting

Universal Photo Art Co.

C. H. Graves

C. H. Gravesm Publisher

Real Photos

Silver Gelatin Prints

Stereo Pairs

Meiji-Era

Meiji-Period

Free to Use

Photo Philanthropy

写真慈善活動

写真博愛活動

Korean

Set

Boxed Set

Vintage

Early 20th Century « less

Sets appears in: • HERBERT G. PONTING -- Images of Asia • OLD KOREA 옛 한국 110-125 년 전

Groups appears in: • Vintage Korean Photos

Stats: 10,012 views

go back

Link to this photo view:
Link to this photo large view: