Where No Man Has Gone Before

Trekkies the world over just celebrated Star Trek's 46th anniversary. As a life-long Trekkie myself I'd like to share a few Star Trek related images-- with a special 3D twist.

When I was a kid my best friend David had a Viewmaster with a disk of the Star Trek episode "The Omega Glory." Anybody remember that? Boy, I was envious. That was my first Star Trek 3D experience.

My Re-creation of one of the iconic Viewmaster Images

I never dreamed that I would grow up to make my own 3D Star Trek images. Here are a couple of shots of the Enterprise toy my wife gave me for Christmas last year. I think my shots are as good or better than the Viewmaster images, if I do say so myself.

I even took a few "Beauty Shots" if you will, with the Enterprise flying by an asteroid. I was pleased with how those pictures turned out.

I had this as my desktop wallpaper for a very long time.

Here's the behind the scenes shot. The Enterprise is mounted on the stand that came with it. The backdrop is made of foamcore and posterboard with holes poked in it. It is light from the back by a couple of desk lamps. The Enterprise and the asteroid are lit with finger lights from the dollar store. The styrofoam asteroid is stuck to the backdrop with magnets embedded inside it and magnets on the backside of the backlit backdrop. That's so I could easily move it around. Then to take the shot I had a regular Kodak digital camera on a tripod. I took the left image, slid the tripod to the right an inch or two and took the right image. I combined them in a free program called Wooly Anaglyph Maker. I've written a complete tutorial on how to do this if you'd like to try it yourself.

My other Trek images so far are just a picture or two of some of my toys--

Here's my mint-condition original series Pez collection hobnobbing with a few superheroes.

This is toy tricorder, phaser and communicator set I picked up on the cheap at the failed Fedcon USA. (That was just about the only good thing that came out of that weekend.) The two tribbles are homemade by my mom when I was a kid. There used to be more, but a couple found good homes and a few were lost over the years. These are the only two I have left. I'd run back in a burning house to get them.

Well, that's pretty much it... So far! Thanks for beaming aboard and sharing my passion for both Star Trek and 3D photography.

I'll leave you with one last silly image-- my Matt Decker impression, or rather what might happen if I were left in charge and tried to rendezvous with another starship. DOH!