National Stereoscopic Association

Website: www.stereoworld.org/ssa

The Stereoscopic Society of America (SSA) promotes the art of stereoscopic photography by sponsoring stereographic image folios. Society members view and write comments about each others’ stereo images, for fun and for skills development.

This sharing is accomplished by postal folios in which each member of the circuit has entered a stereograph for the other members to view and comment upon. When a folio arrives, a member of the circuit views and comments on each of the entries of the other participants. His or her own view, which has traveled the circuit and has been commented on by the other members, is removed and replaced by a new entry. The folio then continues its endless travels around the route list. The success of the concept of the Stereoscopic Society can be judged, it would seem, by its survival … which has now enjoyed more than a full century of activity.

The Stereoscopic Society was originally established in England in 1893 by a small group of active stereo photographers to circulate their work among the membership by means of postal folios. It is now the oldest surviving stereo organization in the world whose common roots are shared by independent offshoots in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as the parent organization in the United Kingdom. As in the beginning, the members are united by a love of creating three dimensional images and sharing them with others.