One of my constant fascinations is with understanding the nature of images, especially the idea that images lie, they mislead and manipulate us. These sorts of vague musings and loose analyses take their most concrete form in the study of photographs, which bear the great weight of representation (ie. they collect and scientifically store light, reality), but which can be picked apart with a fingernail.
And if there is one movement in photography which really excites these ideas in me it is spirit photography. It's like a distillation of the theme truth vs belief, or representation vs the need to believe. It also encapsulates some of my other preoccupations: external manifestations of internal fear, paranoia, mystery, horror, sadness and pathos, hoaxes and of course bizarre men.

Spirit photography tends to well up in a society after moments of national trauma. The movement started in the States after the civil war there, followed by another uprising after the First World War and with a more modern occurrence in the 60's with the deadly tensions of the Cold War.

William Mumler, shot to fame with this self-portrait featuring a ghost of his cousin in 1884. Before that he was a jeweller. His most famous image was of Mary Lincoln and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
He died a pauper after P.T. Barnham (the great showman and hoax maker) publicly accused him of fraud,and put him on trial. Eventually he was aquitted, but his career was over.

Ted Serios was a notorious drunk who could embed images on film using his mind. He called them Thoughtographs. Before making a killing (and never being disproved) he was a bellhop and had been arrested many times for sociopathic behavior.


Next up, photographs of Mediums and Ectoplasm, and Arthur Conan Doyle.