Spirit Photography - A lost art ?

georgweb · 04-27-2009, 02:24 PM

Hi everybody,

found an interesting read I wanted to share: The spirit photographs of William Hope - a set on Flickr

I can follow the notion made there, that such pics would have helped relatives dealing with the passing of their loved ones and keeping them in good memory.

I remember a webpage were a photo of a deceased person was displayed which would slowly fade to white in a timespan of 3 months or so, can't find it anymore.

Do you think photography nowadays (including postprocessing) could contribute in different ways to this matter?

Please understand that I am neither pronouncedly spiritualist nor a professional photog seeking new ideas, I just found it worth a look and thought.

Please feel very free and welcome to post any pics from you which you would think could fit around that topic.

Best, Georg (the other)

Digitalis · 04-27-2009, 07:08 PM

spirit photography....I don't think they can make a lens THAT fast

MRRiley · 04-28-2009, 05:27 AM

Sorry Georg, but William Hope is very very VERY widely regarded as a HOAXER. His photographs were produced using relatively easy double exposures. As I recall, when we studied him in one of my photography classes (back in the late 70s), several of the "ghosts" were later identified as living people.

We even had to produce one of our own "spirit" images as part of the class...

This photo created simply enough by setting the camera on BULB on a dimly lit street. I had a friend walk toward me as I opened the shutter and when he reached the desired position I set off a small flash, after which he continued walking out of frame. This was done on film, entirely in-camera...

Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths were young contemporaries of Mr. Hope who faked The Cottingley Faries which managed to fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who also knew about and believed in Hope's photos). It's widely believed that the girl's parents assisted in the hoax though the girls denied this to their deaths.

Mike

georgweb · 04-28-2009, 07:30 AM

Now that you say it Mike :-)

I like your photo (star filter yeah) and by seeing it I remember I did something similar (gotta find it though). There is another ghost further down the sidewalk, who's that?

About the hoaxing part, I guess we can all agree that seeing is believing :-)

Allright one more example that spirits do exist if you are willing to see them,

See the rainbow ball shaped guardian angel guiding the good man going home? I swear it was there!

Keep on posting, this could be fun.
Georg (the other)

MRRiley · 04-28-2009, 09:00 AM

Georg,

The more distant figure is the same guy. He stopped for a second during the exposure and his legs managed to pick up just enough light to show.

I like your photo. The light is very nice and to me is the main and central subject. The man down the street just defines it more. However, I guess I just have a whole lot of skeptic in me and as I am agnostic I see the rainbow blob in your photo as simply a visual and optical artifact. I believe it was there, just not that it had any bearing on the man in the photo or any metaphysical meaning. I suspect, had you shot the photo at the exact same second and the man had not been present that the rainbow blob would have still appeared.

Mike

p.s. Glad you like the photo... yeah the star filter was fun at the time but has since become very cliched.

*ytterbium* · 04-28-2009, 09:08 AM

Uhh.. then i can just say not get too excited, so the disappointment after a deeper research isnt that big.
On the other hand, shoot under bad light, use outdated film, unreliable cameras, flash, low quality optics, and the ghosts will haunt to you.
Btw i like the photo with the man very much. But even if i try to be open to such speculation i always and up finding some rational explanation that fits too well or is obvious in things like those.
I could also read something about Kirlian photos (incl. phantom leaf).. i've tried it and it didn't happened.

Some of my nature "spirits".. no photo manipulation except resize/crop/contrast/sharpen.. nothing of an artistic value, just some optical/atmospheric "artifacts":

*Ratmagiclady* · 04-28-2009, 03:45 PM

Well, I very much believe in spirits, though not in a ghostbustey way.

It takes a lot more than one of those photographic abberations called 'orbs' to impress me, though. I know too much about photography and spirits to make much of it.

I did get a pretty cool tree-spirit shot last year, though, while playing with a traveling Argus Matchmatic that had, unfortunately, lost rangefinder alignment: I'm pretty sure I accidentally double-exposed while fussing about the loading.

I keep meaning to do something with this, cause it looks pretty cool: (see the lady in the green cloak in the leftmost tree? )

I wouldn't read too much into photographic aberrations, but art happens, even on accident from time to time. People who are looking to "prove" something may be missing something a bit deeper.

Also, this is not to say I haven't seen some truly uncanny stuff once in a while in all my times doing photo. I'm still kind of perplexed by this old box of old paper with the same thin latent image on nearly every sheet, the way it was, ...it would have had to be a *very* labor-intensive hoax left waiting for a rather long time. Hair-raising, if you're scared of that sort of thing.

RioRico · 04-29-2009, 12:18 PM

All images frame-grabbed from an old Hi-8 camcorder. No shooping.

The attack of The Birds, and beaming-up to the UFO!
The alien flying saucer in the sky!
The crashed USAF flying saucer!
Bigfoot! The 20-inch (0.5M) footprint!
Sasquatch! Coming at us! Run! Run!

skydragoness · 04-29-2009, 05:03 PM

Those are great RioRico!

Reminds me of that silly Monsters show on the History Channel when they were talking about mysterious "rods" in this recording of a deep cave in Mexico. It was just the person was using an old camcorder and the fast swallows showed up as 'rods' when they did a slow-motion replay. But they kept saying they were aliens

philbaum · 05-01-2009, 01:56 AM

Originally Posted by georgweb

Hi everybody,

found an interesting read I wanted to share: The spirit photographs of William Hope - a set on Flickr

I can follow the notion made there, that such pics would have helped relatives dealing with the passing of their loved ones and keeping them in good memory.

I remember a webpage were a photo of a deceased person was displayed which would slowly fade to white in a timespan of 3 months or so, can't find it anymore.

Do you think photography nowadays (including postprocessing) could contribute in different ways to this matter?

Please understand that I am neither pronouncedly spiritualist nor a professional photog seeking new ideas, I just found it worth a look and thought.

Please feel very free and welcome to post any pics from you which you would think could fit around that topic.

Best, Georg (the other)

Georg,
Having lost a close relative, i can't imagine wanting any sort of mystical photo of someone i know, IMO.
=============================
On the other hand, I like mystical or ambiguous photos and have made them myself - a few.

Picture below was made without photoshop, just one image and i walked into the water, yes, it was wet :-)

My wife helped me stage this one, all in one image with help from a Metz 48 flash and some auxiliary lighting.

Ira · 05-03-2009, 01:46 PM

The only spirits I believe in are 80 proof.

It amazes me that people actually believe this nonsense.

Classvino · 05-04-2009, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by Ira

The only spirits I believe in are 80 proof.

I've found that this type of spirit often attracts the other type...

IsabelleRibeiro · 05-10-2009, 10:57 PM

This reminds me of a book I borrowed from the Library called Sleeping Beauty. It's post-mortem photography, not 'spirit', but it also deals with the ritual of 'memory keeping' of loved ones who have passed away.
I am a little weird and morbid with this stuff, so I find it incredibly fascinating!

Here is the book on amazon: Amazon.com: Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America: Stanley Burns: Books

and another called Secure the Shadow: Amazon.com: Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America: Jay Ruby: Books

ajuett · 05-11-2009, 09:38 AM

I thought we wanted to avoid ghosting when it comes to lenses?

georgweb · 05-11-2009, 12:00 PM

Ratmagic,
I can see the magic of the Argus' double exposure, like it a lot.

Philbaum,
I really like the double transparency in the lake shot.

Isabelle,
interesting links to those books. This is definitely a taboo area I think and depends a lot on the individual approach to it.

Ajuett,
here's a link to the more mundane ghosts out of the machine - some photogs are really actively looking for them instead of avoiding them, likewise to ytterbium's pics and the first one from Rio Rico, I guess.

Wanted to post that other pic I have of myself in a ghostly fashion, too many hardrives it seems, can't find this one.

Looking forward to your ideas and pictures, Georg (the other)