Rock guitarist Brian May will sell his personal collection of photographs of Freddie Mercury and Queen as signed prints. The images were captured as much as 50 years ago and include images of the iconic singer during his years with the band and photographs of the band together.
The photographs, which were taken by Sir Brian May himself, are currently on display at London’s Proud Galleries. The prints that will be sold have been selected by May and will be hand signed.
Some of the photos are actually stereoscopic 3D images. Interestingly, these were created long before the advent of virtual reality and involved a technique of taking two overlapping images and viewing them through a stereoscope to create the 3D effect. The technique dates far back to the Victorian heyday of photography in the 1800s.
Brian May in a hotel room with his stereoscopic camera, 1978. pic.twitter.com/kUELryot3y
— queen stuff (@photosqueen) July 19, 2018
“It’s been giving me great pleasure to share a chunk of my life’s work – combining some of the magic of Queen’s Glory Days with the alchemy of stereoscopy 3-D – on view every weekday at London’s Proud Galleries,” said May.
“Some of the 3-D images had been hiding in unmounted 35 mm film – rediscovered so many years later, and so evocative of those early days of Queen. The unique ‘virtual reality’ of these in-depth views brings those wonderful, colourful early musical moments so vividly back to life.”
May has been a passionate photographer since his youth and carried his camera everywhere. “Photography has been a life-long passion for Brian since his youth and one of his greatest memories is helping his father develop and print black and white photographs in his spare bedroom,” says Proud Galleries in a statement.
“Unknown to many, Brian carried a stereo camera throughout Queen’s epic journey. Since the inception of the band (which he co-founded in the 1970’s) until the present day, Brian captured a whole history of intimate, playful and iconic images shot from the inside.”
The images will be accompanied by a gallery Certificate of Authenticity, a London Stereoscopic Company’s Queen stereo card pack and a Lite Owl Viewer, designed by Brian May.
[Via The Express]
Image Credit: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!