How to Photograph a Ghost
A Science Project by Jordan Marsh

Introduction

Have you ever seen a ghost? A lot of people have seen things they can’t explain, but that doesn’t mean those people believe in ghosts. I wanted to see if you could take a picture of a ghost so that people would believe they existed.

Can you photograph a ghost?

The dictionary says that a ghost is “the spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats” or “a returning or haunting memory or image”. If a ghost appears and is seen or makes an image then you should be able to take a picture of it.

Background Information

People have been trying to take pictures of ghosts for a long time. One of the most famous people to take ghost photographs is William H. Mumler. He started taking pictures of ghosts in 1862, and his pictures became so famous that Abraham Lincoln’s wife had him take one of her. Mary Todd Lincoln’s photograph shows her and Abraham Lincoln’s ghost after he was assassinated.

People wanted to make money with ghost photography so they started selling fake ones. P.T. Barnum, the circus man, showed how the pictures could be faked, so William Mumler was arrested for fraud and put on trial. This trial was very famous and lots of people came to see it and newspapers had stories on it. William Mumler was found innocent, and he swore that his pictures were real even if other people’s weren’t, but people didn’t trust ghost photography after that.

Even if people didn’t believe ghost photographs, some famous ones have been taken.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall was taken in 1936. Raynham Hall is in England and people talked about it being haunted by a lady that used to live there. On September 19, 1936, two photographers came to take pictures of the house for Country Life magazine. When they took a picture of the staircase they got a picture of a ghost. Lots of people have tried to prove this picture is fake, but no one has been able to.

The Backseat Driver

Mabel Chinnery went to visit her mother’s grave in England in 1959. She took a picture of the grave while her husband waited in the car. After she took the picture of the grave she took a picture of her husband in the car. When they had the pictures developed there was a picture of the mother in the back seat. No one has been able to explain this picture.

The Toys ‘r’ Us Ghost

A Toys ‘r’ Us store in Sunnyvale, California, is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a man that cared for horses. There used to be a farm on the land the toy store is built on and this man died there. After the toy store was built the people that worked there started to see weird things happen. Toys would fly off the shelves and other things happened. In 1991 they had a séance to see what would happen. A magazine took pictures of the séance and when they had the pictures developed they found one of a man standing in the doorway. A TV station was also filming a show there and the show doesn’t have a man in that spot when the picture was taken.

Can I photograph a ghost?

Equipment

To take pictures of ghosts you need to use a camera. Some ghost hunters say to use a camera with film so that you have a negative to check. Other ghost hunters say it’s okay to use a digital camera, but you have to be careful because digital pictures can be faked on the computer.

Procedure

Ghost hunters say that you can take a picture of a ghost if you go where you might find one. That is someplace where something bad happened like someone died. A battlefield is a good place.

When you get to the place you should walk around for awhile so the ghosts can get used to you. Then you’re supposed to ask them if you can take their picture just like you would ask someone that’s alive.

After you take the pictures then you check them to see if anything strange shows up. Ghost hunters say that if you take 100 pictures you might only get 1 that has something strange in it. If you use a digital camera you can look at your pictures right away and don’t have to wait for the film to be developed.

Ways that ghosts show up in pictures are:
1. Orbs
2. Ectoplasmic Mist
3. Full-bodied Apparition

An orb is the easiest shape for a ghost to be seen in. Things that can look like ghost orbs are flash reflections on water drops and mirrors. You can tell if the picture is a ghost orb because it will be very round and will look just like a ball. It might even have a shadow. Reflections look flat and aren’t completely round. They also won’t have a shadow.

Ectoplasm is ghost energy that you can see. When you take a picture it will look like smoke. It’s very hard to tell the difference between ectoplasmic mist and smoke. You have to be very careful not to smoke when you take ghost pictures. You also have to take them when it isn’t foggy so you won’t think that fog is ectoplasm.

A full-bodied apparition is when the ghost really looks like a person. This is the rarest kind of ghost photograph. Sometimes people take two pictures on one negative. This is called a double exposure, but sometimes people think it’s a picture of a ghost.

Conclusion

I didn’t take any pictures of ghosts, but I did find some that no one can explain. I also learned how to make pictures that look like ghosts. This makes it easier for me to look at other people’s pictures to see if they took a ghost photograph.

Sources

Marsh, Donna, Interview, May 2004.

Marsh, Donna, “A Brief History of Spirit Photography”, Adsagsona Paranormal Society Website.

Marsh, Donna, “Famous Spirits and Their Photos”, Adsagsona Paranormal Society Website.

Unknown, “The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall”, Mysterious Britain, http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/hauntings/brownlady.html.

Unknown, “The Mumler Mystery”, The American Museum of Photography, http://www.photographymuseum.com/mumler.html.