This photograph is one of George Washington Wilson’s most popular images of Fingal’s Cave on Staffa. Viewed as a stereoscopic image, the viewer is invited into the very mouth of the cavernous cave which is made possible by the three-dimensional effect of stereoscopic photographs. Wilson has placed two figures on the right of the foreground, not only to give a sense of scale, but also to add to the image’s depth; this enhanced the three-dimensional view. Fingal’s Cave was one of the most visited locations on Thomas Cook’s Tartan Tours of Scotland during the mid-19th century.

Watch the short video below to see this photograph as it would have appeared through a stereoscope.