Spirit photography
The end of the American Civil War and the mid-19th Century Spiritualism movement contributed greatly to the popularity of spirit photography.
The omnipresence of death in the Victorian period created a desire for evidence of the afterlife, and those who partook in Spirit Photography oftentimes hoped to receive images that depicted the likeness of a deceased relative or loved one.
Both were shown to be frauds, but "true believers", such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, refused to accept the evidence as proof of a hoax.
[1] Yet, since they required long exposures, it was possible for passing movement to leave a faint image, and they were able to capture reflections in the manner of Pepper's ghost.
The media sensation that this caused led Mumler to leave engraving and to begin a successful business as a "Spirit Photographic Medium", which he set up in New York and Boston servicing those hoping to find a supernatural connection with relatives killed in the American Civil War.
[2][3] One of Mumler's most famous images is a photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln posed with the purported spirit of her assassinated husband.
[4] The apparent spirits that Mumler had captured were double exposures of previous clients from photographic plates that were improperly cleaned.
[4] In 1875, Édouard Buguet, a French spirit photographer, who also had a studio in London, was arrested in Paris and prosecuted for fraud after making a full confession.
She took a photo of the library at Combermere Abbey in Cheshire, England in which appeared the "...faint outline of a man's head, collar and right arm".
Because the exposure was one hour, it was believed by skeptics that someone, possibly a servant, had walked into the room and paused, causing the ghostly outline.
In February 1922, Harry Price from the Society for Psychical Research, a magician named Seymour, Eric J. Dingwall and William S. Marriott showed Hope to be a fraud.
[3] Paranormal investigator Massimo Polidoro said that the case of William Hope and his followers demonstrate how difficult it can be to convince true believers, even when there is strong evidence of fraud.
[13][14] Photograph anomalies have always been present in photography but in the 1990s television shows such as Ghost Hunters claimed the abnormalities represented proof of the afterlife.
Radford believes that with camera technology advancing, especially with smart phones, there should be clearer, sharper images of ghosts.
[19][20][8][21] According to Kenny Biddle and Joe Nickell in their article So You Have a Ghost In Your Photo, "Asserting that a particular image must be paranormal because it is unexplained only constitutes an example of the logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance."
A flash illuminating a person's breath in cold weather, cigarette smoke or fog can look like "ectoplasmic mist".
[1] Ben Radford, in his book "Big – If True: Adventures in Oddity" includes the phenomenon called pareidolia, the tendency for people to see faces or animals in things such as clouds, tree trunks or food, as an explanation for finding ghosts in photographs.
According to paranormal investigator Kenny Biddle, the "ghosts" could have been created because the camera was in panorama mode, which takes several seconds, and which can cause a double image from the longer exposure.
Ben Radford indicates that the way the woman on the stairs is dressed and the location add to the possibility that people will jump to the conclusion that the paranormal is at work.
Adam Lees, the managing director of a security firm who received the alert, stated "She's leaning forward and seems to be floating, and is holding something in her hands.
Biddle surmised that the camera was in an infrared night vision mode and a flash was fired, explaining the overexposure of the figure and the colour distortion.
The apps are customizable allowing the user to place the ghost anywhere within a photo, rotate it, adjust its transparency, and erase parts.
Others, such as the owners of pubs, hotels or ghost hunting tours will try to profit from the photos by increasing their clientele or raising their prices.
