Say Cheese!

Ghost photography is always an interesting topic and one I approach with great skepticism.  

I think some folks go way overboard in reading into paranormal phenomena.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe in ghosts, spirits, energies…all that stuff.  I have seen it with my own third eye enough times to drop a load of ectoplasm in my underwear.  One must be very cautious before jumping to any conclusions.  I am more apt to believe someone saying they “sensed” something and give a precise, documentable story than any ghost picture.  That may seem odd considering that a picture is worth a thousand words.

There are things such as accidental double exposures (or purposeful), sudden luminance/light changes in an environment and let’s face it…Photoshop.  A camera (photographic or video) can suddenly and seemingly inexplicably go out of focus if there is even a small amount of change in lighting.  Auto focus can be very precise, not to mention temperamental; if it is set on one specific area and the camera moves, it will refoucus if the lighting is different.  Don’t be quick to think The Ghost of Mr. Chicken threw out your focus until you study lighting changes in the surrounding area. 

And yes, there are images that have been captured that appear to be perfectly legitimate. 
I don't doubt for a moment that thousands of folks have gotten authentic pictures.  I believe that the "other side" does in fact make it's presence known frequently.  I have a few that we could never find a logical explanation.  Sometimes, you just don’t want to explain it away because it is just fun to believe.

Like this one.  This was taken right before my high school graduation.  It is very possible that some sort of double exposure occurred in the film processing lab….but…we always knew we had a ghost in that house.  (Look in between the two graduation caps)

  The ghostly image of chili that had boiled over on the stove. I ruled out the paranormal on this one:

One summer, my sister and I spent many a night in graveyards attempting to photograph…well…something.  Out of over 1,000 shots, we got only got two questionable photographs. Somehow, like an idiot, I ended up deleting one of them and this one you have to look really hard to see anything…which at that point, becomes a matter of interpretation….not fact.

This particular night, we had gone to the graveyard earlier and gotten freaked out, so we left.  We both felt a strange sense of dark, bone chilling unwelcome-ness; so much so that my sister said "They do NOT want us here."  I was already in the car ready to peel out by the time she figured it out.  We ended up going back a few hours later to the same spot...don't ask the logic on this one...with a cop friend.  I guess we thought if we were taunted by dark forces, he could arrest them for harrasment or snuff them out with his gun. 

It was pitch black and my sister and I both felt a certain area in which to aim the camera.  We decided at this point, it was our last shot we would EVER take.  As crazy as it sounds, we decided that it felt "exploitive" to go to a graveyard to take pictures.  How would you feel if someone planted themselves in your yard trying to get photographs of you?  We called this picture "The Last Pose", since it appears as if someone is sitting on a tombstone (looks like legs hanging down) and there is some sort of image next to it. 

These were taken with a tri-pod at a 40 second exposure with a professional grade camera, they were also lightened after downloading to inspect for any ghostly images. 

I took a test shot of this photograph of my father and I in 1967 for a project I was doing.  When I uploaded it, I was fascinated to find “Mom” had appeared, as if it was hand written.  It was not visible when looking at the photo with the naked eye on either side.  Further inspection with a magnifying glass showed me that the photo had probably been placed under paper while I was writing (as a child).  It was a very cool notion initially, since my mother passed away many years ago.

This is just increidbly frightening: