Real Ghost photographs

[Ed]

as opposed to photographs of real Ghosts.....

At the Met http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/arts/design/30kimm.html

Very amusing photos.

Gotta love this:
Posing for a carte de visite, the vicomte, after Disdéri had snapped several dour shots of him in the de rigueur black frock coat and top hat, decided he would remove his clothes, all except socks and shoes, don what looks very much like a hot water bottle on his head but was in fact some sort of helmet, hold a shield and pretend to be a ghost. His friend (raised eyebrows, forefinger scratching forehead) acts as if the apparition startles him. (He doesn't look half startled enough.) Disdéri also sloshed around some chemical on the exposed negative of the naked vicomte to make the image look less corporeal.



and this apt point:

...it is, at heart, also a sneakily serious affair. Its subjects include the depths of human gullibility and the conjuring power of photography, whose technology, we may forget in the cynical day of digital manipulation and Photoshop, seemed unfathomable to so many people a century and more ago.


And because I know that you are very, very, very busy people, I herewith provide the link to the exhibit, free of charge...

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Perfect_Medium/images.asp

To whet your appatite, feast your eyes on this...

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Perfect_Medium/images/Thiebault.L.jpg

[c4ts]

I can't tell whose sexuality is more questionable, his or the ghost's.

[Azrael 5]

Saw this link on MagicCafe forum,as a photographer with an interest in such things(not a belief,note.)I love the pics.

[Pedro Gomes]

Great photos. Some time ago, I did the following using GIMP (an open-source application similar to Photoshop). It’s a shot of a part of the wall around St. Andrews Cathedral in Scotland. There’s an old woman pasted on the top-left opening and a fat cat pasted on the bottom-right opening near the ground, both with ludicrous reddish auras above their heads... I must admit the cat is horridly pasted, not to mention that it’s quite out of proportion.

I then e-mailed it to a friend merely as a joke, saying that the woman and the cat were not there when the shot was taken, etc. To my surprise, he half-believed the story (he’s not even into paranormal stuff, just a common guy who dislikes horror films). So, I replied that it was true indeed, adding that I had thrust my arm into one of the openings on the wall only to feel an unnatural chill.

When I visited my friend weeks later, I learned that he had felt quite disturbed by the photo and had actually shown it to another guy he knows who happens to be a spiritualist and who, in turn, was already highly interested in having the original, to show it to another spiritualist, allegedly a connoisseur of these things... Apparently, the “unnatural chill” detail fit perfectly. Then, I realised how easy it is to give rise to a fairy tale.