Invasion of the dodos

It might be extinct as a species, but there's certainly no shortage of dodos here this week! Above is a 2D scan of my Nimslo 3D shot, taken in January 1984, of a real dodo skeleton in the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. I finally got around to scanning it. My newer scanner has difficulty interpreting the lenticular laminate on my 3D photos, but the old scanner handles it well.

But these are some recent arrivals, after a bout of dodo madness on eBay:


Dodos from "Primeval" (by Character Options) and Safari


A Harmony Kingdom dodo keepsake box

The Ettamogah bunyip!

In December 1985, there was only a wildlife sanctuary and a souvenir shop at Table Top, aka Ettamogah, namesake of the famous Australasian Post "Ettamogah Pub" cartoons by Ken Maynard. These days, there is an actual replica of the comic strips' gravity-defying pub (and replicas in other tourist locales) - but prior to that you could sometimes catch a glimpse of a real live bunyip, that was kept in a special pen at the wildlife sanctuary.

The display was "out of order" the day I visited. Supposedly, if you lifted a flap, the bunyip would rise up out of his muddy swamp and squirt water at you. I hoisted my camera over the fence to snap this rare shot.

Nostalgia in 3D, in 2D

The shooting model of the starship USS Enterprise from "Star Trek" the original series. These pictures were taken in January 1984, at the Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, USA. I used my Nimslo 3D camera, but these are 2D scans, of course. (This is also pre the controversial restoration the model underwent in 1992.)

2D scans of old Nimslo 3D photos!

With Rhonda Williams, California. Christmas in USA, 1983.


"The Wizard of Oz" wax figures at Movieland Wax Museum, January 1984.
The museum used to be opposite Knott's Berry Farm in Los Angeles, USA.


Our award-winning costumes from the gala premiere night of "Ghostbusters", 1984.

The signs on our backs read "Rent-a-Ghost". I'm holding a red fly-swat, but included in our winners' goodie bag was... an official logo "Ghostbusters" ghost-swatter.


"Cometcon Blankety Blanks" (1986) with guest panelists, T'Pring, Spock and a Peoplebuster.

Super LA memories

My series of 2D representations of my 3D photograph collection, taken with a Nimslo 3D camera, continues:

When I arrived in Los Angeles, in January 1984, I contacted Bjo Trimble, often better known as "the woman who saved Star Trek", and organised to catch up with her for several days of shared Star Trek geekiness with her family.

I had several people trying to organise, on my behalf, an "executive tour" through the (empty) sets of "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" at Paramount. The movie had not long finished filming, and was then in post-production. But it wasn't looking good; Susan Sackett, Gene Roddenberry's assistant, was on a rare one-week vacation out of town.

Bjo suggested I make a point of going to the more commercially-oriented Universal Studios tour, just in case the Paramount tour failed to materialise (which is what happened, sigh), but also: the La Brea Tar Pits (I was shocked that I didn't need to take a left turn at Albuquerque!); and the (now defunct) Movieland Wax Museum, only a block from Knott's Berry Farm at Buena Park.

I was pleasantly surprised by the thoughtful layout of this wax museum. While some of the likenesses failed to emulate the superior figures of London's Madam Tussauds', Movieland Wax Museum excelled in its presentation of each exhibit. I loved the way visitors were tantalised into guessing each upcoming exhibit as they wandered around its maze of corridors. A path gradually changed to yellow pavers... and, around a corner, there were the characters of "The Wizard off Oz"! The trail gradually turned to gravel, and there were the brothers and Dad from "Bonanza"! Distant cheers from a huge crowd led to the just-ended chariot race from "Ben-Hur". Electronic beeps and a droning female computer voice led one right onto the bridge of the USS Enterprise with the "Star Trek" crew.

And an unexpected chilled breeze led to...



Superman's Fortress of Solitude! Wow! That was a moment where the hairs rose on my neck. There, in one corner, the imposing figure of the Man of Steel himself, looking oh so very Christopher Reeve, and even wearing an authentic costume from "Superman: The Movie". It was quite breath-taking.

I even braved "The Black Box", which was a relatively new section dedicated to horror movies, such as "Friday the 13th", "Alien" and "Halloween". I didn't realise, until buying the View-Master reel sets for the museum in their gift shop, that there had once been an accompanying "Palace of Living Art" exhibit (which lives on at San Francisco's wax museum). "The Black Box" at Movieland was part of a major renovation.

It was an amazing day - thanks for the tip, Bjo! I ran out of time to revisit the museum in 1992 - and I was saddened to hear that the museum finally had to close its doors in 2005. They auctioned off most of its figures, sets, and props. According to a fan web page, the "Star Trek" main cast went to a fan for $34,000 in the auction. The Elizabeth Taylor-as-"Cleopatra" figure brought in $25,000. The Christopher Reeve-as-"Superman" figure sold for $16,000 (coincidentally, just days after the death of the late Reeve's widow), and "Elvis" went for $14,000.

The road to Adelaide, 1985

Continuing my series of 2D representations of my 3D photograph collection, taken with a Nimslo 3D camera, here's the first photo taken on my December 1985 holiday to Adelaide. First stop, for breakfast, was Goulburn, home of the Big Merino, and also this wonderful King Kong display on a (now long gone) video rental store in the main shopping strip. It was a case of, "Wow! That'll be a great 3D shot! Stop the car!" That's (now-housemate) Steve in the pic; the less hairy one on the far left. ;)



What intrigued me was the possibilty of how 3D would be the reflection of traffic behind me, as viewed in the shop window section of the "TV screen". Although Kong himself was very two-dimensional - even in the 3D image, as I expected - the road and cars turned out to be extremely three-dimensional in the actual Nimslo print when it was processed.

Any time we've passed through Goulburn since, we've tried to identify which shop used to be the Kong shop.



Moving on to Gundagai, here's the famous "dog on the tuckerbox" statue. In the 3D image, the writing on the roof of the souvenir shop is actual quite legible, but the dog looks great in either version. Today, he has a bigger monument built around him.

I'm really liking these pics, and the way they scan.

Th'frosty the Aenar thnowman

Yesterday's exciting find of photographs, lost since 1992, sent me into a nostalgia spin, determined to track down some other interesting pics I've always wanted to share.

Here is my Andorian snowman - in 3D! (Note that he won't actually appear in 3D on this monitor screen; it's just a normal 2D scan, although the background ends up with an interesting blurred effect.) Created in Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 1983, with my penpal Olivia, this cute alien snowperson has a phaser and Starfleet insignia (from her Star Trek collection). He's wearing a "Go Blue!" pin, the coincidentally perfect catch cry of the local Michigan University.

Knowing what we know now about Andorians (via the TV series, "Enterprise"), this is no doubt a rare Aenar snowperson.

Nimslo 3D cameras were hot stuff in the early 1980s, and took four half-size negatives of each subject, and these images were sent off by mail order and combined under rippled plastic to create a 3D picture. I was curious as to how the combined image would scan because the negatives are filed away - oh so carefully - somewhere!

The half-sized negatives can be printed like normal negatives, and I'm thinking that (when I find them), the extreme left and right images could probably be set up side by side onscreen to permit a true 3D viewing, right here in this blog, via the "drift" (ie. crossed eyes) method. But it actually scanned in 2D fairly well as it is!