A lot of time has passed since the birth of photography. After the advent of Kodak’s Brownie camera photography became part of the everyday realm, something that anyone could learn and afford to do. And as technology advanced so too did image manipulation, until we almost assume that every awesome image we come across has been altered somehow.
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But despite the fact that we all know how common image manipulation is, and how willing people are to create strange pictures for attention, spirit photography is just as popular today as it was back in the late 19th/early 20th century. In fact, one might say that it never really became unpopular, it just changed.
Just as photography changed hands from the sole work of professionals to everyday folk, so too did spirit photography. With the decline of the formal sitting people stopped going to mediums to try to get pictures taken with ghosts, instead they started trying to take pictures of the spirits themselves.
These “ghost hunters” would go to cemeteries and other supposedly haunted places and take pictures to see what showed up.
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The picture below was just one such photograph taken by the Cheshire Paranormal Society on Packhorse Bridge in Caergwrle, Wales.
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One of the most famous pictures in this vein is that of “The Brown Lady” of Raynham Hall. Believed to be Lady Dorothy Townshead rumor has it that although she was declared dead in 1726 she was actually locked away in a remote corner of the house by her husband who suspected her of adultery. She died many years later.
Hearing that the hall was haunted Country Life sent two photographers, Captain Provand and Indie Shira, who took one picture of the staircase and were setting up for the next when Shira saw something coming down the stairs and shouted at Provand to take the picture.
This is what he got on camera:
But what’s more interesting is that the majority of spirit photographs (or “ghost pictures” as they’re called now”) don’t center around the professionals. Rather, they are everyday pictures of everyday objects that happen to show something extra. And they are all over the place.
The most common pictures are of “orbs.”
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Clearly spirits of some kind, right? They’re often believed to be ghosts in one of their purest forms.
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Except, you’re probably thinking “heck, I’ve got some pictures like that! I didn’t think they were ghosts…” Well, science comes down on your side, unfortunately. There’s a reason why most of them appear outside. Most orbs are explained away as artifacts taken by a camera in low-light instances where the camera’s flash is used, and thought to be retroreflections of light off of small particles like pollen, dust, and rain drops. They’re especially common with super-compact cameras, like those found in cell phones.
But there are some orb pictures that do seem to show something supernatural. Like the one below, taken from GhostStudy.com’s book on ghost photos. The family saw their small boy running to and fro over the lawn, chasing something imaginary, and so the dad laughingly took a picture.
Imagine their surprise when the object that he was looking at showed up in the picture.
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And this isn’t the only picture where a child seems to be aware of something creepy that no one else can. Check out this one, with a clearly upset child in the bottom right and something odd peeking out from between the group’s legs…
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Or even weirder this one taken of a mother and child in front of their house.
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What is the baby looking so intently at? Let’s take a closer look…
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Sometimes with camera phones movement can be captured oddly, but the one below seems to be something more than that. If the person on the right was supposed to be the shot why is it centered over the two girls? The story that accompanies that is that neither the photographer nor the girls felt anything at the time.
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One of the coolest ghost pictures taken was captured by Rev. Ralph Hardy on his vacation to the National Maritime Museum in England. The staircase was an impressive piece of architecture and, being unable to get up close to examine it he took a picture to look at it later. But there was someone else in his shot.
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Supposedly this picture was taken by a woman and her boyfriend who had just moved into an old house and found a guitar. They decided to take some pictures with it.
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he Altar Ghost!
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What the holy heck is that thing? It looks like something out of a Lovecraftian tale.
The following was taken of Mrs. Sayer while her and her friends were visiting the Fleet Air Arm Station in Somerset, England. It was an empty display helicopter and Sayer swears no one else was in there with her.
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The following was taken on January 22, 1985 at a Coventry Freeman dinner at St. Mary’s Guildhall in Coventry, U.K. No one noticed him at the time. It’s possible that it’s just someone in a costume who stumbled in during Grace and bowed his head in prayer with everyone else, but why does he have a drinking glass laid out for him?
Then again, why does he have a drinking glass but not a chair?
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The following is more odd than anything else. The cowboy in the front is Terry Ike Clanton, who works in Tombstone. He’s a cousin of the historic Clanton Gang and so took some pictures of himself in classic 1880 period clothes.
The weird thing isn’t Terry, however strange his mustache might be. No, it’s the oddly short man behind him. A figure that Clanton believes is holding a knife.
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If that wasn’t weird enough, Clanton points out that his shadow is all wrong.
Another creepy shot was taken as Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England burned to the ground. It was too hot to get close to the building, so Tony O’Rahilly took pictures from across the street with a telephoto lens.
But despite the roaring flames, despite the firefighters looking on for any sign of trouble, there’s clearly the image of a girl in the doorway.
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The next picture was supposed to be a scenic shot for a wedding invitation. Or so Neil Sandbach intended it. It’s a picture at a farm in Hertfordshire, England where the couple was planning on having their wedding.
It frankly just looks creepy.
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There are many more pictures than just these. In fact there are many websites like Ghost Study which are just dedicated to showing pictures like these. Of course there are still pictures which are admitted fakes…
…but the majority of people who go to these sites seem to think that most of these pictures are real. And so, when we look back at the 1800’s and 1900’s we realize that we aren’t any different than the people who lived then. We’re still looking for proof that the afterlife exists and still willing to employee our cameras to find it.