Creator Spotlight with 3D-Stereo Photographer Martin Lobel
This week we’d like to introduce you to 3D-Stereo Photographer Martin Lobel.
What was the inspiration behind becoming a creator? What do you enjoy most about the creative process?
Inspiration for creating 3D photos came from the father of the girl I was dating when I was in the Army. His hobby was taking 3D stereoscopic slides and viewing them in a hand-held 3D viewer. The life-like views fascinated me, so I began taking my own 3D photos. What I enjoy most about MY creative process is seeing good 3D effects on my processed digital photographs.
Can you take us through your creative process? How long does it take? Does everything you produce make money?
The creative process is:
- Choosing a subject to photograph, usually a landscape or architectural feature.
- Finding an appropriate position from which to photograph the left and right eye image pairs.
- Downloading the photographs from my (2) cameras to my computer.
- Cropping and editing the photos for lighting and color.
- Processing the photos through software to merge the stereo pairs into side-by-side or anaglyph format.
- Viewing and sharing the 3D photos with others.
What do you think is the biggest misconception about your line of work?
The biggest misconception about my line of work is that there aren’t many ways to create 3D images. Actually, 3D images can be created using polarization of images, red and cyan based left and right images, side-by-side (left-right) or cross-eyed side-by-side (right-left) images, or stereograms, like Magic Eye.
When did you first become aware of copyright, and why?
I first became aware of copyright when I was in college. I learned about copyright accidentally, but it was so helpful for me to know how it works and what it protects.
What is the best piece of advice that you would give other creators in your field about copyright and how to protect themselves?
My advice to others about protecting their work is to NOT trust that people know about automatic copyright ownership, and to print or state who the copyright owner is—after you register your works with the U.S. Copyright Office—so that people know who to contact for permission. Also, once your works are registered for copyright, people can also look up who the owners are via the Copyright Office’s databases.
Are you one of our Individual Creator Members? Participate in our Creator Spotlight series! Please email us at cawebsite@copyrightalliance.org. And if you aren’t already a member of the Alliance, you can join today by completing our Individual Creator Members membership form!