When I first began making stereograms in 1996 the Internet was the furthest thing from my mind. Two years later, I got connected. With low expectations, I typed "stereograms" into a search engine for the first time and was amazed how much came up. At that point, my stereograms weren't bad, and I was tempted to put up my own site. I was finally able to get a cable connection that came with 10Mb of server space. I developed some basic Web design skills and posted the first version of what I called, Color Stereo. To my astonishment, I got so much traffic it used up the meager bandwidth allowed by the ISP. So in 1998 I took the big plunge and took out my own domain. Meanwhile, I'd come up with a technique for adding a volumetric look to the paper cutout appearance common to wallpaper type stereograms. This prompted me to add a second set of galleries which I called Second SIRDS, and I called the first galleries: Color Stereo 1. Later, I added the Third Eye galleries when I began integrating stereo-photographic elements into my images. I kept adding additional galleries until it got too much. I eventually took down Second SIRDS. As a result, Color Stereo has evolved into something I would never design from the ground up. My Web design skills are far better than when I first began, but still kind of basic. Basic works out fine because in my wish to reach as many viewers with as many different platform, connection speeds, monitor sizes, and screen resolutions as possible this setup works better than complicated multimedia pages. Anyhow, who needs fancy multimedia when stereogram viewers get innate 3D. Largely as a result of the Color Stereo site, I now have a career as a dedicated stereogram creator with steady publication in Japan. There are also a few books available in the US as well as Europe and Asia. The result of keeping up with custom jobs and publications is I no longer have time to update the site as I would wish. Despite
the remarkable amount of visitors from all over the world,
people still usually give blank stares when I mention stereograms.
My mission is twofold: use this site to inform the public about
stereograms, and take stereograms from a visual curiosity into
acceptance as a New Age art form. I'm not saying that many of my
stereograms are art, but that is the direction I wish to head.
Last but not least, I wish to bring some pleasure to my visitors. |
