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Ghost Photography (General: History; Techniques; Authenticity)

Great stuff! :D

I wonder how many of those hobbyists' joke photos turn up as evidence of real ghosts?

My late father loved ghosts (and indeed all Fortean phenomena) but was adamant that they couldn't be photographed as they were spirit forms and so could not reflect light. I feel that try as he might, he just couldn't believe that any ghost photographs were genuine. Trickery like this probably didn't help!
:lol:
 
Lovely. I inherited some bound up 1940's Meccano magazines - I'm sure there's a similar article in one of those.

Photography has always somehow managed to get itself confused with 'truth' in the minds of many people, despite the fact that a camera is quite literally a box of tricks the end product of which is the result of further trickery - and that's just for the 'honest' images (for want of a better description).

I've often wondered how long a gap there was between the first photograph and the first faked photograph - I suspect it was a very narrow one indeed.

I love a ghost myself, and ghost photographs can be interesting (as well as a hoot, sometimes) - but to my mind it's misguided to assume (as many people appear to) that there's any more inherent truth in a photographic image than there is in a story some bloke told me down the pub one night.
 
Yup, I agree with everything you say. Everything about ghost photography is fascinating, including all aspects of fakery.

There was a famous 'spirit' photographer in Crewe, William Hope, who got in on the act quite early. Crewe was a big centre of Spiritualism. It was a new town, created for the railway boom in the mid 19th century, and had many Non-Conformist places of worship, so it was a natural home for the only genuinely new religion of the nineteenth century.

Hope became quite famous for his photographs and had many fervent followers, despite being repeatedly exposed as a fraud, and was a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

What intrigues me most about Hope though is that he was a contemporary of some of my own Crewe forbears from only a few generations back. My father's mother was a staunch Spiritualist and the family were closely involved with the local Spiritualist Church from its beginnings in Crewe. I feel sure that they knew Hope, and must have held some opinion about his work - did they believe he was actually taking photos of spirits, or not? I sometimes look at his pictures and wonder if he even practiced on my great-grannies! :lol:
 
I certainly agree that 'Spirit Photography' is a fascinating subject even if we can now see it for what it really is. And when you also accept that early photography was plagued by issues in the developing and printing process (and indeed, the quirks of the cameras themselves) and that people are prone to misidentify mundane objects as products of the paranormal it's no wonder that there appears to be a body of 'evidence' built up over the years to support people's belief in ghosts.

Here are a few examples of such photographic anomalies from my own collection of original vintage photographs. Whilst I have made attempts to draw my own conclusions, I would welcome any other opinions, particularly from photographic experts. I cannot say with any certainty that these images are NOT evidence of the paranormal but I believe that they can be explained more prosaically.

1. THE MAN IN THE BACKSEAT: Here we have a shot of a family posing next to their Ford Popular car sometime in the 1940s. A child - probably the couple's son - is positioned in the front seat and can just about see out of the open front nearside window. Now look at the rear window; the face of an elderly man peers out at an unusual angle. He appears too low and positioned too far forward of the rear seat to look like he's actually sitting comfortably in the back. It cannot be a reflection of a third person OUTSIDE the car as he would need to be in front of the woman to achieve this effect. CONCLUSION: It does look strange but it is most likely the man is sat - albeit awkwardly - in the rear of the car with the position of the camera making appear too low down. Alternatively, it could be the result of a double-exposure.

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... y/car2.jpg

2. STRANGE GLOBES: A photograph of a charabanc full of day trippers taken sometime in the 1920s. Possibly at Weymouth Quay. At the rear of the bus can be seen a strange looking dark globe positioned just to the right of the head of the girl on the far right. A second, lighter coloured globe can be seen in front of her also to the right, near the collapsible roof of the bus. CONCLUSION: Possibly balloons purchased from a balloon seller by the day tripper. The uppermost 'globe' could alternatively be a sun hat held up by the girl just to the left of the furthest girl. These do not appear to be faults in the developing process.

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... lobes1.jpg

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... lobes2.jpg

3. THE ODD COUPLE: A very odd scene that is hard to describe! CONCLUSION: Double exposure.

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... ghost1.jpg

4. THE SHADOW AT THE WINDOW: A photograph of Shiregreen estate near Sheffield dating to about 1920. At the upper middle window of the house nearest the camera can be seen a dark human-shaped figure. However, it cannot be a person looking out of the window as the window is clearly closed! The 'figure' appears darker than any other area of shade in the photograph making it stand out from it's surroundings. Close inspection of the surface of the photograph reveals that it is not an ink mark. CONCLUSION: artifact possibly caused during the printing process.

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... house1.jpg

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... house2.jpg

5. THE VANISHING LEGS: Here we have a photograph of an unknown girl taken in the 1920s. There is nothing unusual about the shot until you look at her legs. They appear to be transparent! Her left shoe also looks like it has vanished. The rest of the girl appears very solid. CONCLUSION: possibly the result of an odd double exposure or an optical illusion created by a combination of the material her stockings are made from and undergrowth sitting in front of the camera lens giving the appearance of her legs merging into the background.

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... /girl1.jpg

http://i1093.photobucket.com/albums/i42 ... /girl2.jpg
 
Fascinating photos, thank you! :D

I agree with your ideas. The last one is indeed a double exposure, of a woman sitting in a chair reading and a child standing up, wearing a dark skirt. The two figures are female and show a resemblance and so could be related.

I bet that photo gave the family a lot of laughs! :lol:
 
Yes, that one was either probably quickly discarded as an aborted attempt or kept by the family and brought out when guests arrived as a humorous talking point! What do you think about the fourth one? Seems quite straightforward but it is the most sinister looking of them all.
 
I agree that the shape at the window is something to do with the printing. It's funny how it's in such an opportune spot though!

A few years ago I took a photo of Techy when out on our dogwalk. It's just him and a load of foliage, quite a boring snap, except that a few pixels have malfunctioned over his face, giving him a shiny, robotic visage! :shock:

I also have a photo of him with what appears to be an ectoplasmic snake emerging from his trouser fly. I think that's up on one of the Orbs threads.
 
Bizarre but true, the image is not a fake photo* - a section of the derelict building was put on a pivot and twisted about!

Wine lodge Madness

My night in there, once upon a time, I prefer to forget!

*The first posted pic does just look like a draft for the project. And I don't think it is the Richard Wilson of "I don't believe it!" fame! :)

edit: I suspect the first photo is just a mock-up for the project.
 
I also have a photo of him with what appears to be an ectoplasmic snake emerging from his trouser fly. I think that's up on one of the Orbs threads.


Pictures!!!!!!!

Purely in the name of scientific enquiry of course.
 
Caitlin Doughty, star of the YouTube 'Ask A Mortician' channel, investigates ghost photography.

 


Here is quite a new YouTube video of a talk on William Hope and the Crewe Circle Spirit Photographs, given by Dr Efram Sera-Shriar at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford.
The introductions are marred by poor sound but the talk itself is clear.

Interestingly, the gist is that while Price was able to expose Hope as fake, Price himself was not above some chicanery.


During the opening decades of the twentieth century, William Hope was a well-respected medium amongst the spiritualist community in Britain, with positive endorsements from major scientific figures such as the chemist William Crookes and the author and physician Arthur Conan Doyle.

He was often seen as one of the few mediums to be able to produce authentic spirit photographs. However, all that changed in late February of 1922 when a team of investigators led by the famous British psychical researcher Harry Price claimed to have caught Hope cheating during one of his sittings and discovered that he was swapping blank photographic plates with ones containing existing images on them that appeared to be depictions of spirit entities.

Hope was publicly exposed as a fraud, and what ensued was a major debate between believers and sceptics over the legitimacy of the medium’s alleged spirit photography.

In this talk, originally delivered 27 January 2022 at Café Scientifique (National Science and Media Museum, Bradford) and.titled 'Caught on Camera: Reflections on William Hope and the Crewe Circle Spirit Photographs', 'Media of Mediumship' team member Dr Efram Sera-Shriar uses materials from the Senate House Library and Science Museum Group collections to explore this story, and reflect on what makes for trustworthy evidence in investigations of extraordinary phenomena.

For more on 'The Media of Mediumship', visit https://mediaofmediumship.stir.ac.uk/.
 
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