Reel 34 - Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls and View-Master reels

Water pushes its way past vegetation clinging to small islands.

Mist makes rainbows.

It looks like the tree in the centre of the view is about to roll over the top of the waterfall.

There's a lot going on here at The Devil's Throat.

A rainbow extends over the viewing platform like a forcefield that stops everyone from getting dry.

There's a more complex contour to this section.

Some of you may have at some point wondered why on Earth I took such an antiquated camera all the way to Antarctica. Well, the short answer is that despite its shortcomings, I love what it can produce. The long answer is that I'm a View-Master collector, which is in itself an answer that merits further explanation.

View-Master is a brand name that I think most people over a certain age will recognise. However, it's been around for longer than most of those people probably think. People generally associate it with their childhood, and therefore assume it was a product of that time, which is true. However the format was first launched in 1939 and since then an overwhelming number of reels have been produced. Their subject range has shifted over the years. Initially they were mostly concerned with scenic views which would be sold at tourist attractions as well as regular shops, such as the Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam. Over time however TV and film tie-in reels became popular and View-Master's owners (their corporate history is too convoluted to go into detail here) did less and less scenic reels.

It's the scenics that form the bulk of my collection, partly because there are so many of them, but also because I find them the most interesting. There's something quite magical about peering into a View-Master and seeing a piece of the world frozen in time. I think it's the combination of it being 3D and backlit. The fact that they used Kodachrome until the '70s also helps. It's incredibly stable, and even the oldest reels still have bright, vivid colour.

When I say there were a lot produced, I don't exaggerate. The most complete attempt to document them runs across four volumes of books and totals around 2000 pages. I've got a lot of reels, but compared to some collectors it's a modest amount. There are some relevant highlights of course, and it's worth mentioning them here.

First of all there is a three-reel packet titled The South Pole – Conquest by Air. This was produced in 1957, which was a very busy year for Antarctica. It was the start of the International Geophysical Year, which intensified already building interest in the continent that would ultimately lead to the signing of the Antarctic Treaty two years later. The views on the reels are great. There's wildlife in the form of adelie and emperor penguins and seals. There's an aerial shot of Mt Erebus and of a plane taking off from the pole, which is all pretty big-ticket stuff as far as Antarctica is concerned and way beyond anywhere I went. There's also a shot of a collection of huts on McMurdo Sound that would eventually grow into McMurdo Station. McMurdo is the nearest thing Antarctica has to a town, being capable of supporting up to around 1,500 people.

There were a number of packets and reels made of Argentina and Brazil, some of which were reissues and others contained updated views. It is, as you have no doubt gathered from my earlier remarks, complicated. I do however have four packets from the late '50s to early '60s period which are my favourites, and they handily line up with this blog.

There are two for Argentina. One for Buenos Aires and another covering the country as a whole. The Buenos Aires packet has some nice street shots, along with the usual city staples of prominent parks and buildings. The Argentina packet leads with a shot of Iguazu Falls on the cover. The shot is included on the reels, where it is apparent its photographer has also opted for the tree-in-foreground depth technique. There are some great mountain and canyon shots too.

The remaining two are for Brazil and follow the same pattern as the other two – there's one for Rio and one for the country as a whole. The Brazil packet also includes a shot of Iguazu Falls, and true to form it's a better shot than the Argentinian one. There are also some really nice views of Brasília. The Rio de Janeiro packet has plenty of tourist favourites to concentrate on, including some terrific shots from Christ the Redeemer, but I don't want to get into all that now as chronologically this blog hasn't got there yet.

If you're interested in any of those, check eBay. They sometimes come up for sale and can be reasonably priced. Viewers are very easy to find cheaply there, along with other, cheaper, packets and reels. The sky is the limit when it comes to the prices of the rarer ones though. There are some that I will only own through sheer good fortune, but that's part of the fun of collecting.

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Bonus selection of digital 3D and 2D shots on Flickr