Spirit Photography

心霊写真 / 1862–1930s / Style / Photographic Genres

The 19th-century trade in ghosts produced by double exposure. From Mumler's portrait of Lincoln's widow to the séance boom, it fed on the very belief that a photograph proves something, a style built from media deception and desire.

Spirit Photography — Mumler, Mary Todd Lincoln with a “spirit”, c. 1872 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Mumler, Mary Todd Lincoln with a “spirit”, c. 1872 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Spirit Photography — Spirit photograph by William Hope — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Spirit photograph by William Hope — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Spirit Photography — Séance photograph of the medium Mary Marshall 1939 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Séance photograph of the medium Mary Marshall 1939 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

At a glance

Visual cues

Translucent superimposed figures
Composites with mourning portraits
The séance-record format
Staged evidentiality

Best used for

Horror and ghost story promotion that borrows the look of a genuine record
Exhibits and teaching material about how much a photograph proves

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Dictionary entry

Type: Add a handwritten date and a testimony like line in printed form
Composition: A frontal portrait of the living with the figure half over the shoulder
Material: Double expose at low density and blur the edge until it vanishes
Caution: The ghost gets rendered sharp and finished as artwork, which destroys the one condition the style needs, that a believer could read it as accident.
Further study: the Mumler trial of 1869 / the Crewe Circle / the history of photographic evidence

Related entries

Tableau Photography (タブロー写真)Shared effects: Rebellion.Compare Spirit Photography and Tableau Photography
Analog Horror (アナログホラー)Shared effects: Rebellion / Nostalgia / Calm.Compare Spirit Photography and Analog Horror

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