A Special Exposition of the Paris Pages:

Paris in Stereo - Page 3

Sainte Chapelle - 1st arrondissement - Originally built to house the Crown of Thorns placed on the head of Jesus during the crucifixion, La Sainte Chapelle is on the grounds of the Palais de Justice on the Ile de la Cité. It is a small structure but because of its tremendous stained glass windows, often referred to as a "jewel box". The cramped quarters with many buildings surrounding it, make it difficult to find a place with a clear view of the chapel. In fact its not possible. Here, I walked into a courtyard next door to take this picture. (single image)

Sacré Coeur - 18th arrondissement - Physically moving closer to the Basilique of course is one way of overcoming lens problems. This pair was taken in January 1995 from the steps of the Basilique. The cloudy winter day doesn't give a very inspiring backdrop to these set of images, but nevertheless they have a very strong 3D effect. (single image)

Tour Eiffel - 7th arrondissement - An obvious subject for this project, this perspective is from rue Le Tasse in the 16th. This is about 100 metres from Trocadéro, direction southwest. The more obvious - almost traditional - perspectives are from Trocadéro itself, but moving people and cars make it difficult to get a stereo pair. Hence this outlook from rue Le Tasse - a short quiet little street, next to the forested grounds of the Palais de Chaillot - les Jardins du Trocadéro. The flag on the right of the images indicates the entrance to the Turkish Embassy. (single image)

Gare du Nord - 10th arrondissement - What a tremendous façade the Gare du Nord has. With the statues along the top, it makes you think of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Each of these statues personifies one of the important destinations for trains leaving the station. This station - gateway to the North - serves Britain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Northern Germany and Scandanavia. The Eurostar trains for London, which take the Channel Tunnel, also depart from here.

As you'll notice neither of these two images is particularly good on their own. The statues aren't even fully realized in the right image. Yet, taken together the 3D effect is quite strong, and the statues are - apparently - completely resolved. (single image)

Opéra Garnier (Rear Façade) - 9th arrondissement - This was taken from the roof of Galeries Lafayette. I had just had lunch with Ric Erickson at Café Flo, and he suggested that we take a look at the City from the outside terrace - especially since I'd never done so before.

It was a bright day (July 1995) and I thought I would try to get a stereo pair of the Opéra Garnier which is just next door. Because of the sun's angle, the rear façade wasn't well illuminated, and the image is a bit dark. One of these images by themselves wouldn't be worth showing to anyone, but the fused 3D image which results from these two poor images is actually fairly interesting, so I include it here. Not that this collection of images is here to shed light on the inner workings of our brains, this pair does show that the brain is somehow synthesizing information to create a 3D image which is better than either of these too images by themselves. (single image)

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