Red/Cyan 3D glasses are needed for viewing the last few photos of this post.
Well, I’m back again. So, another vacation over and done with(usually, I don’t travel as often, but this year was a little unusual), and a bunch more pictures to process. As to where I went… well, it’s the country with Amber Fort (also called Amer Fort) in it. It also has the Taj Mahal, but that’s a post for another day.
Amber Fort is part of another UNESCO world heritage site, being one of the six forts included in the ‘Hill Forts of Rajasthan’ entry. You might have noticed through my posts, but I am a little obsessed with visiting UNESCO sites. The Hill Forts were inscribed as a site in 2013, but I knew of Amber Fort before that. In 2012, I found a stereoscopic photo of the fort, taken at the turn of the century(the copyright date is 1903). It’s one of my favourite stereoscope pictures in my collection. When I heard about the tour through India, the the fact that we were going to the fort was the deciding factor in joining it.
115 years ago(give or take a couple years)…
Here is the original unaltered stereoscope card. I’ll have a red/cyan anaglyph conversion later on in the post.
The photos are a little worn and faded- touching it up, the right photo looks like this:
I find that Underwood & Underwood, the publisher of the stereoscope cards, usually did a very high quality job. Most photos are well composed and high resolution. The cards also have detailed information on where the photos were taken, and often a description of the scene on the back. This card is no exception – here is the description on the back, complete with some mild vintage racism.
Well, that’s the description of the region almost 115 years ago… or at least the description by a western tourist trying to make things more dramatic.
115 years later
Well, the old guide is long gone, but don’t worry- the palace and fort are now a major tourist destination, and there are now plenty of other guides. Forget about the deserted palace and empty city; traffic might be your biggest worry. It’s still amazing to see the palace and fort, but you definitely won’t be wandering alone through empty rooms.
I don’t know exactly where the original photo was taken. I was very close to the spot, probably several metres to the left and one story lower, but the exact location is probably closed to the public. Here is my version.
This is more of a panoramic view than the original; by cropping it down to the same area included in the 1903 photo, you can compare the two more easily.
As I said, the photos don’t line up perfectly, but they are pretty close. The wall that is in my modern photo is visible behind the railing in the left photo, and the hills are in roughly the same position. The town below is much larger a century later, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a radio tower in the 1903 photo. Just as another way of comparing the two, here is a .gif comparison.
And now for the 3D pictures
The Underwood and Underwood photo focused on the elderly guide; there isn’t much 3d detail in the background landscape.
I considered asking my guide to pose for the photo, but it didn’t feel right to me. Instead, I chose to focus on the landscape. I took my left and right photos several metres apart. I had to crop out the walls in the foreground, as the difference between the left and right photos were too far apart, I ended up with this.
Close enough for me to consider it a success.
I’ll be posting more photos of Amber fort eventually(once I get around to sorting and processing the photos), but don’t hold your breath for them. No more travel planned for a while, though, so I hope to be posting regularly for a while.
The modern photos were taken with two Canon SX210 IS cameras. Don’t ask me about the 1903 photos.
Parallel Views 