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Moving Photographs

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realspooky

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Sep 14, 2003
Messages
283
Hello

One thing that has always spooked me is moving pictures. In my old mans front room, he has a small photograph of my Nan and Grandad which was taken whilst on holiday almost 20 years ago. Now obviously it has alot of sentimental meaning to my family and to myself, as both of them are now deceased.

But many nights when I lived there, I could be either watching TV or walking into the room and I would swear that one of them had just moved in the picture. Only very slight movement, but enough for them to either be giving me a wave or sharing a quick comment. Most of the time I checked the photograph but it had not altered in any way, shape or form. I also tried several times staring at the pic whilt listening to music, but apart from the odd flicker of my own eye causing my vision to jump around, there was no obvious movement.

Sometimes when alone in the house at night, this spooked me so much I would turn the photo around to such an angle to that whereever I was in the room I wouldnt be able to see them both.

Obviously the eye can play many tricks and I'm sure this is the case here, accompanied with a very over active imagination. I am always reminded of the scene in the film 'IT' when the photograph of Billy's dead brother winks at him and begins to bleed.

Not quite as dramatic this, but has anyone else on here been so spooked by a picture or photograph 'apparently' taking a life of its own?

Or maybe I'm going craaazzzzy?

RS
 
Sounds like 'The Mezzotint' , by MR James . Every day a mysterious figure in the picture crept closer and closer to a house and eventually stole a baby . Freaked me out so much when I read it . I remember also seeing it on Jackanory or something back in the 70's , and if I recall correctly it was narrated by Robert Powell .
 
There is a kind of mischevious aura regarding this phenomenan, like the person in the picture knows he might just be able to catch your eye, but it is not largely spoke about or documented. It is covered in films and books, but there is a severe shortage of accounts, old or recent, regarding moving photographs.

RS.
 
Re: Moving Pictures

realspooky said:
Hello

But many nights when I lived there, I could be either watching TV or walking into the room and I would swear that one of them had just moved in the picture. Only very slight movement, but enough for them to either be giving me a wave or sharing a quick comment. Most of the time I checked the photograph but it had not altered in any way, shape or form. I also tried several times staring at the pic whilt listening to music, but apart from the odd flicker of my own eye causing my vision to jump around, there was no obvious movement.

RS
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Could it not have been the reflection of the TV on the glass of the frame? If you were watching something where the scene changed quite quickly it would make it look like the photo was moving
 
It could very well have been, LittleGreyLady. Like I say, most of these incidents are simply a trick of the eye. It would be interesting to find out if anyone had performed any tests to try and prove a guilty photograph was actually moving (I know it would defy logic, but doesnt most forteana?)

RS
 
I used to be freaked out by the idea of moving pictures as a child - I'd got the idea from the term "moving pictures" as in cinema, but in that odd child logic, thought it referred to ordinary photos in a picture frame.
 
Apologies, I have now changed the name of the subject of this post. I have just realised the confusion the term 'Moving Pictures' will cause in relation to the cinematic term.

RS
 
Not had experiences with moving photos, but as a kid I used to have an emu glove puppet that sat on a chair near my bed. Sometimes whilst going to sleep I would swear that the puppet would turn round to look at me. Scared the crap out of me!
 
Partially for this reason and because I live completely alone, I dont keep pictures of people. All of my pictures are of citys and buildings (a great interest for me).

I wouldn't THINK of keeping a portrait of anyone in my apartment, too creepy.
 
there's a moving painting episode featured in <the witches> by roald dahl, IIRC. a girl is magically trapped in a painting by a witch, and her parents see her moving or changing expressions from time to time. something like that, anyway.
 
Thats the thing here I think...moving photo's are the 21st century's answer to the moving paintings of old.

I'm not saying that moving photo's are false phenomena or anything just that like a lot of old hauntings we are beggining to see their mannifestations in our world now
 
I used to see statues of Jesus and Mary move on the rare occasion I went to mass with my cousin, as a kid. I think this was motivated by my extreme but short lived religious fervour, which was essentially based on guilt that my family were godless heathens.

A bit off the thread, but regarding the comment about the photo bleeding in IT, I would highly recommend to anyone of a sensitive, imaginative disposition to avoid horror movies at all costs, and never allow your children near them. Particularly anything by Stephen King - that man is a freak. I am going to seriously try to avoid seeing another one for the rest of my life. Thanks to horror movies, I have grappled with the following fears since early childhood. See if you can guess the movie:

1. That I will wake up to be floating near the ceiling.

2. That a hand will come up the toilet and pull me in.

3. That the water will turn to blood when I'm showering.

4. That I will leave the room briefly only to find all the furniture rearranged when I return.

5. Also anything involving china dolls or clowns.
 
lardfan said:
"I used to see statues of Jesus and Mary move on the rare occasion I went to mass with my cousin, as a kid."

I went to Mass every schoolday morning as a child (with my grade school class) and noticed on an almost-daily basis that the lips of the various statues seemed to be moving, as if speaking. This was in Sacred Heart Church in Bellevue, Kentucky.)

But even in the second or third grade (seven or eight years old) I realized that this had to be a purely psychological phenomenon (even if I didn't yet have that phrase to describe it). Especially after my Mother told me that she had played exactly this same "game" as a child when she'd gone to Mass in the same church.

When I was in the fourth grade (this was around the Spring of 1950) a rumor ran though the lower grades (one through four) that the statues in the church had begun to move. This caused a minor panic among the students, who refused to go into the church alone or without an adult present. Me, I sat back and smiled smugly, having figured out exactly what was going on.
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This freaks me out for a different reason, because moving pictures are one of my reoccurring dreams. In the dreams, I look at photos and they "play" a short sequence, sort of like a short movie scene but in picture form. Doesn't sound too scary but it is always accompanied by a feeling of "it can't be real but it is". In real life I'd be amazed but in the dream it is just wrong.
[Might be a premonition to future picure taking or something :roll: ]
 
In the not too far off future (scientists predict), it will be cheap and easy to produce moving images on a 2D surface, and it will be a daily occurance to see pics move. So ghosts will have to work that bit harder at trying to scare us.
 
Can people in photos move?

I guess really it all depends on whether you are a muggle or not!


*~* sorry I couldn't resist *~*
 
I used to see statues of Jesus and Mary move on the rare occasion I went to mass with my cousin, as a kid.I think this was motivated by my extreme but short lived religious fervour, which was essentially based on guilt that my family were godless heathens.
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Yes but are you sure??? Moving statues...gahhh :shock: I have a pretty moderate case of statuephobia myself. I can pass near to some without freaking, depends on the statue and how realistic/imposing it looks. Others I refuse to go near.


In the not too far off future (scientists predict), it will be cheap and easy to produce moving images on a 2D surface, and it will be a daily occurance to see pics move.
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This is not helping. Why in the name of zeus would I want to see pics moving on a flat surface. There just seems to be something unnatural about that... :shock:
 
This is not helping. Why in the name of zeus would I want to see pics moving on a flat surface. There just seems to be something unnatural about that..
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Dude you haven't ever seen a TV by any chance have you? :D
 
when i was a kid some very religous friends of my family in belgium had a picture of jesus on the cross, on which the eyes would open if you viewed it from certain angles, terrified me, used to have nightmares about it too.
 
ginoide said:
there's a moving painting episode featured in <the witches> by roald dahl, IIRC. a girl is magically trapped in a painting by a witch, and her parents see her moving or changing expressions from time to time. something like that, anyway.
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strictly due to this, the movie creeps me out!! I hated watching it as a kid.
 
I was going to school in a small village in Ireland at the time when the moving statues hysteria broke out there in the mid 80s. In fact the village I lived in was the very village it all started in (this was big news in Ireland at the time, I don't really know if it was news outside the country). I remember all sorts of absurd claims were made, including that old photographs of the staues showed them in different postures and that they had changed substantially over the years. Of course I never saw any of these photos, nor did anyone else. In fact, apart from one little girl (so she claimed anyway), I don't think anyone saw anything at all. I went and stared at the statues for ages and, disappointingly, nothing at all happened, but with all the hype surrounding them, it has to be said, religious statues look a bit eerie anyway.
 
Print on the Wall

Several years ago I came upon a posting to a Web "true ghost story" board which really seems to resonate with our recent discussions here. It was one of those anonymous messages, so the usual caveats apply, but I can think of no really obvious reason to automatically disbelieve it.

An Australian girl was raised with a charming framed print on her bedroom wall - the picture was of a raft full of fuzzy-bunny type animals. It was being towed down a placid river or brook by a friendly turtle.

Like most children the girl grew so used to the print that she rarely looked at it. As she grew older she may well have regarded it as something of an embarrassment. But one day well into her adolescene she studied it deeply, perhaps for the first time in years.

The cuddly animals were entirely gone. All that remained was the turtle. He/she was sailing down the river entirely alone.

When the girl questioned her family, they insisted that the print had always been of "just a turtle on a raft."
 
Dingo667 said:
This freaks me out for a different reason, because moving pictures are one of my reoccurring dreams. In the dreams, I look at photos and they "play" a short sequence, sort of like a short movie scene but in picture form. Doesn't sound too scary but it is always accompanied by a feeling of "it can't be real but it is". In real life I'd be amazed but in the dream it is just wrong.
[Might be a premonition to future picure taking or something :roll: ]
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I used to have similar dreams as a kid, and often they'd feature supposedly inanimate things moving - sometimes due to a poltergeist, and sometimes not.

I think there's something interesting in such dreams, and I think they might relate to a fear of losing control. They also seem to be indicative of the 'magical thinking' kids do, where objects are seen as being somehow alive and posessing a personality.

zahir10 said:
In the not too far off future (scientists predict), it will be cheap and easy to produce moving images on a 2D surface, and it will be a daily occurance to see pics move. So ghosts will have to work that bit harder at trying to scare us.
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You can already get things like that. They are small LCD screens which can display a selection of photos, and presumably a short animation.
 
Maybe to ours eyes still pictures move because when we see a human and the signal goes to our brain, it expects it to be animated in the sense? Because we do see 100's of people moving everyday?

RS
 
Still Photography

Back in 1984 I was requested by a major publisher of photography books to ascertain whether there remained any future at all to STILL PHOTOGRAPHY now that video recording had become so commonly available and with the possibility of saving moving images to home computers lurking on the horizon. The firm which employed me for this project was giving serious consideration to dropping their photography books altogether and concentrating exclusively on videography manuals.

The information I obtained from authorative sources (including lengthy correspondences with the research and development sections of major camera and/or film manufacturters) strongly indicated that still photography was in better health than ever before and that the future seemed limitless.

All these 21 years later, people still like that "moment absolutely frozen in time," which "moving pictures" (even with sound!) simply don't provide.

P. S. Black and white still photography remains healthy, too.
 
chockfullahate said:
when i was a kid some very religous friends of my family in belgium had a picture of jesus on the cross, on which the eyes would open if you viewed it from certain angles, terrified me, used to have nightmares about it too.
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Our Ladys Cathedral in Antwerp has a picture of Jesus , and its eyes follow tou around the room . No matter what you position in the room is , if you look at the picture , it is staring straight at you. Cannot remember the painter though .
 
For a competent painter it is easy to create the 'following eyes' look. It is to do with centring the iris so that the eye appears to stare directly forwards.

This isn't normally done in portraiture as the position of the eyes (looking 'down' on the observer, looking demurely to the side from a modestly-turned head etc) is an important element in creating the psychological image of the subject, and thus the relationship between the subject and the observer.

OTR - a version of this debate has been going on since photography was invented, as I'm sure you know well!

When photographs were first circulated as records of events such as people's achievements, there was a feeling that painting was no longer necessary - photography could do it all.

There were even artists who adopted what appears to be a 'photographic' style, with highly-focused details and panoramic views.

Of course, we all know about an early popular commercial use of photography, to 'record' the visits of the Dear Departed to their grieving relatives. This went on in my own home town in the 19th century.

All of which may indicate a lingering belief in the ability of a photograph, or further back in time, a painting, to retain a little of the life of its subject, which of we can sometimes catch a fleeting glance... :shock:
 
I can remember as a small child travelling on a train and having the whole carriage in hysterics. I kept asking when the lady in the large advertisement was going to actually drink the cup of coffee. I had the idea that she drank it as soon as the train pulled away and kept stretching to see her do it. On the other hand I have a friend now who swears that when something bad is going to happen to her that she sees her religious picture cry.
 
Not being a scientist myself, obviously I cannot fathom a scientific reason why ink on photographic paper should being to move in such a way it would seem that the image is coming to life.

OT but on the subject of Escargots input, I also have a disturbing phobia of large portraits with 'moving eyes'. I'm fascinated with the seemingly simply art technique behind this effect, but it is a prime example of how skill and technique can decieve the untrained naked eye.

Back on, could it possibly be that because the photo at the centre of this thred is over twenty years old, the 'out of the corner of your eye' movement could be down to the quality of the photograph, ie. camera film used, angle taken, colour depth and resolution? I will admit this, in contrast to todays quality of even negatave printed photographs, it is very bright and very pale, and always has been ever since I remember.

RS
 
10 Years?

realspooky said:
"....the photo at the centre of this thred is over twenty years old....in contrast to todays quality of even negatave printed photographs...."

Gee, but you make a mere 20 years sound like the geological history of a continent. My own experience is that for the past 125 years, ever since George Eastman/Kodak introduced modern "layman" home photography, visual clarity of images has consistently declined, being traded off for easy camera use and rapidness of film developement.

Look at Matthew Brady's glass-plate negative photographs from the American Civil War, more than 140 years ago. In the best of them you can count the stitches in the uniform jackets. In city scenes taken around the same time you can read every word of the sho-cards is shop windows a block away. Try THAT with today's "high-quality" (!!) photographs.
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