Spirit Photography
Spirit photographers of the late 19th Century rode a wave of commercial success with their images purporting to show spirits and ghosts The genre quickly fell out of favor when it was debunked as fraudulent use of double exposures and darkroom trickery. While the spirit images are fakes scientifically they are often lovely aesthetically — despite the fact that the photographers’ interest was commercial, not artistic. Many spirit photographers were excellent printers who created images which, though sometimes silly, were often ethereal, unique, ephemeral and beautiful.
In this series I attempt to re-create the spooky but beautiful look of the best of the spirit photographs, without use of double exposures or fraudulent post-processing. The double images and ethereal effects are the result primarily of the shutter being open for long periods under extremely low light conditions. None of the images could be re-created as they are serendipitous interactions between the moving subjects and extraordinarily faint, fleeting light.
