How to View Famous Ghost Pictures

It's important to understand that our cultures differed greatly in the last couple of hundred years.

In the mid-1800s, when photography first surfaced (see Capturing Ghosts on Film), people did not have an understanding of how cameras worked. Superstition thus prevailed and photos must have seemed like magic. When the earliest ghost pictures began appearing, people were very willing to believe that the camera possessed a special way of seeing what the human eye could not: the invisible spirit world.

But the spectators did not understand how easily the photographer could place 'spirits' in photos by using double-exposure techniques. And, some of the photographers became incredibly famous (e.g. see William Mumler Spirit Photography) while the public believed their ghost photos were real (even Mary Todd Lincoln!).

As the number of camera owners gradually increased, more ghost pictures were inadvertently snapped; and some of these photographs could not be explained away by camera tricks. Many of these artifacts discovered in photos were certainly caused by explainable, natural things. But some phantasm pictures were spectacular and not able to be reproduced, being something paranormal. Those that became renowned found fame by way of books, magazines or newspapers prior to the computer age.

Today, a ghost photo can be snapped anywhere and shared because of our smartphones, the advance of digital photography and the web.

Our technology and understanding of the world has progressed quite a bit over the past two centuries. Keep this in mind when viewing famous ghost pictures. Consider how people might have perceived them during their time period, given the existing knowledge, culture and religious beliefs.