[By Chris Cheesman, Amateur Photographer]

Brian May’s enduring rock star status is signalled by the trademark hair and PR girls aplenty buzzing around the lobby of a swanky hotel in Soho.

Armed with a PhD in astrophysics, the lead guitarist for a band reputed to have sold 300 million albums is, though, disarmingly grounded on first meeting. 

Brian May CBE is also reassuringly open, not a trait he associates with the stereoscopic clubs of this world which, he concedes, are akin to a ‘kind of secret society’. 

Not that he minds. Like an obsessed fan with the best seat in a highly specialised arena, this unabashed 3D disciple seems to revel in his role as the public face of stereoscopic photography. 

May’s lust for the third dimension began as a boy when he collected stereo cards given away free with packets of Weetabix cereal. 

‘This is a passion I have had for most of my life… The first time I saw the magic I was completely transported,’ he remembers. 

Seeking out like-minded enthusiasts, May first joined the Stereoscopic Society around 40 years ago where he pursued an interest in 35mm format stereo slides. 

And the 3D flame has remained undimmed ever since – emerging unscathed from tours with Queen during the 1970s and 1980s when, the morning after the night before, he would scour dealers for new stereoscopic treasures. 

‘I always carried a stereo camera with me in the Queen days,’ he says, insisting his hobby was not simply a release from the rigours of life on the road. 

‘It was just a twin path. No, I never got bored on tour and I never got to the point where I wanted to get away,’ he reflects. 

‘It was purely “here is another great passion” and something which I could follow in a way no-one else could I suppose. 

‘I was able to travel the world because of Queen, and what was going on, and so I had access to people who were interested in my hobby, if you like, all round the world.’ 

So, did fellow band members Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor and John Deacon share May’s fascination for 3D? ‘They did enjoy it, yes. I showed them quite a few things when I was collecting,’ he recalls. 

‘Obviously they didn’t get obsessed like me but they liked it, yes, absolutely. 

‘Freddie was kind of obsessed with his Polaroid camera when he first got it. 

‘He loved the fact you could take a picture and you could see it immediately, so he was taking all his friends and enjoying the moment.’ 

Little black book

The globetrotting songwriter would log details of the stereo dealers, fellow enthusiasts and collectors he met along the way, in his ‘little black book’. 

‘I think I still have it somewhere. It’s a bit out of date now but some of those people I keep up with. It’s been rather nice.’ 

As a renowned collector he has amassed ‘tens of thousands’ of stereoscopic cards – and he is not done yet, though the rate has slowed in recent years. 

‘I’ve been to a lot of auctions in my time… and, of course, you can buy them hundreds at a time, particularly the 1900s ones which are my speciality…’ 

Many of the 19th century stereo cards, he explains, were created from scenes captured in Britain, and ‘tell a story’. And around the turn of the century you could buy them in box-sets. 

‘You had landscapes, portraits and there was a very big business for people making what became known as “sentimental stereo cards”…’

Fast forward to 2011 and a screening room inside the W Hotel, just off Leicester Square. 

May is back in the spotlight to publicise a one-hour documentary for Sky TV calledBrian May’s Brief History of 3D. 

In the programme, to be broadcast on 7 July, May explains how the stereo image became popular in the 1850s – largely thanks to the discovery of modern photography that followed Charles Wheatstone’s invention of a stereoscopic viewer in 1838. 

After Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot invented their respective photographic processes in 1839, photographers were despatched far and wide to capture scenes that could be made into stereoscopic cards. 

By 1858 – at the height of the 3D craze – the London Stereoscopic Company reportedly had more than 100,000 pictures for sale and a New York manufacturer claimed to be churning out 23,000 a day. 

But the format’s popularity waned in the late 1860s and 1870s, not helped by photographers such as Eadweard Muybridge whose interest veered towards the moving image.

This interview continues here: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/Brian_May_interview_Crazy_little_thing_called_3D_news_308321.html