As If You've Seen A Ghost:

I have never (to my knowledge) seen a ghost. I don't know that I've heard one. However, I do know several otherwise normal friends who firmly believe they've interacted with the supernatural. Therefore, I believe that there must be something to their stories.

Do they have active imaginations, or is there something creepier to blame?

I'm sure everyone here has seen a Ghost Photograph. Generally, this consists of a photograph of a graveyard with weird lights, or a shadowy face in a window of a rambling old house. These days I'm reluctant to trust ghost photographs because PhotoShop is so user-friendly.

Then an idea struck me - what about antique or vintage ghost photographs?

Here are some that I've found. Sometimes double exposure could be the cause, but there are others where such an explanation doesn't make sense.

Look in the back seat.

Famous old ghost photograph of "Brown Lady of Rayham"

This one was originally deemed to be a double exposure, but then someone discovered that the women didn't take any photographs of young children on that roll of film.

And here's my favorite, because it's the least likely one to have been faked (though I'm always open to any scientific explanation):


Taken in 1919, this ghost photo of a RAF squadron from World War One has an extra ghostly face in the picture. It is believed to be Freddy Jackson, an air mechanic who had been accidentally killed by an airplane propeller two days before the pic was taken. His funeral took place on the day the photograph was shot. Members of his air squadron recognized his face with ease and believe he must have shown up for the haunted picture, unaware he had passed. Freddy's ghostly apparition appears behind the airman in the top row, fourth from the left.


What do you think?

Pictures of the Dead:

In olden days, when the child of wealthy parents died, the family paid to have a portrait painted including the deceased. The recently departed was depicted as alive, though might be staring off into the distance while the rest of the family faced forward. Other signs of a mourning painting are a child holding dead flowers, or dead flowers in a vase near the sitter.

 The middle classes typically remembered their deceased with "hair art," which could be a wreath made from the hair of their loved one, or a piece of jewelry created from hair.

Photography was invented in Paris, though there is some argument about that (the first photograph was taken in 1827 and took 8 hours to develop).  While having one's picture taken was costly, it was not nearly so prohibitively priced as having a portrait painted.  As one might imagine, being able to keep an actual image of the family member appealed to mourners greatly, so when photography became affordable and popular, Victorians had pictures taken of family members after they died. As with the earlier paintings, the mourning photographs intended to depict a "living" person.

Most of the time, the deceased was "asleep."

Sometimes the deceased was propped up along side living family.

I should point out that it is the young girl above who is being propped.

Taken 9 DAYS after she died.

There are some people today who feel that this old practice is "creepy" or overly morbid, and are glad that we now properly respect the dead. These people forget that not everyone had a camera back then, and mortality was much higher. That postmortem picture is all that the parents have left of their little boy or girl. Think about it - there's no other way to remember what the laughing child looked like before the sickness or accident. Parents don't want to just bury their baby and forget, so they have a picture taken as if their child was napping.

Today's occidental society is far removed from death.  Aging, Sickness and Death no longer take place among family in one's home.  Today we hide them away in nursing homes and hospitals.
In a time period when Death walked more frequently among us, such images weren't foreign and disturbing.  The were loving reminders of those who passed too soon.

Even The Government Gets History Wrong: Presidential Photographs

I happened to be at WhiteHouse.gov, and was scanning the History page. Near the bottom, I read that "President James Polk (1845-49) was the first President to have his photograph taken."

I thought to myself, Now that can't be right.

I know I've seen photographs of earlier Presidents.

The website JamesPolk.com says, "James K. Polk was not the first President to be photographed - William Henry Harrison gets that distinction..."

I found the picture of President Polk (one of my least favorite Presidents).

I mean, who conquers Mexico, then gives it back?

The above daguerreotype is from the collections of the Library of Congress, and was taken in February of 1849 by Matthew Brady, who would later become famous for photographing less pleasant aspects of the Civil War.

1849 is admittedly very early for photography in America, but it wasn't the beginning.

I know that George Washington never lived to see photography, so there are no photographs of him.

John Adams nearly lasted to the infancy of photography, but he and Jefferson died on the same July 4th day in 1826; daguerreotypes weren't patented until around 1837.

Poor short Madison (I would have probably liked him) died even before the aforementioned two: 1817. Next was James Monroe, but he too died well before the age of photography. The President of whom I was certain had sat for one or more actual pictures was John Quincy Adams. Like all other Adams (well, not his drunken brother Charles), he lived a long life.

Sure enough, around 1843, John Quincy sat for a photo-op.

John Quincy Adams, Sixth President

This picture can date earlier, but no later than 1848, because that's when he died.

William Henry Harrison served for one month before dying of pneumonia in 1841 (Note: Don't give verbose speeches in the rain). Therefore, this picture must date prior to his death.

Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So we have learned that the earliest President to sit for a photograph was John Quincy Adams (#6), and the first President to be featured in a photograph was possibly also Adams, but probably Harrison (#9).

Another photograph of John Quincy. The Wikipedia entry says this negative was created around 1855. Um, he was dead by then. And I don't know that daguerreotypes had negatives since they ARE negatives.

Perhaps James Polk was the first sitting President to have his photograph taken, though it would appear that Harrison holds that distinction as well.

I think WhiteHouse.gov should take a second to clarify that little issue.

UPDATE:
I found a daguerreotype of Lincoln before he was President, dated 1846, taken by Nicholas H. Shepard.

Still earlier than Polk.