In Windwalker, my heroine, Justine Callaway is a professional photographer specialising in architectural photography. Her story begins when she takes up residence at Paradine Park, a beautiful Palladian house in the English countryside. The house has a tragic history: nine years earlier one brother had killed another in a moment of uncontrollable rage.
Justine starts photographing the empty rooms of Paradine Park, seduced by their stark if decaying beauty. But when she develops the pictures, something extraordinary happens. In each of the pictures she is able to detect the image of a wolf. Sometimes the outline of the animal is blurred, indicating movement, as though she had accidentally captured the wolf in full flight as it had burst out of nowhere. Other images are static. As she continues to take pictures of the empty house, she discovers that every single room is haunted by the shadow wolf. It is as though the wolf is trying to tell her something -- guide her, in a certain direction...
The history of ghost photograph is almost as old as the history of the camera itself but most instances of ghost photography are little more than clever photographic deception. In 1862, using double exposure, William H. Mumler succeeded in creating eery images of misty figures hovering ghostlike in the background. A host of imitators followed and the sale of ghost pictures to grief-stricken relatives became a growth industry.
A different kind of ghost photography is thoughtography. In these cases the photographer is key. It appears to be the photographer’s ability to affect unexposed film - consciously or unconsciously - which creates these startling visual images.
The most well-known thoughtographer was Ted Serios who worked as a Chicago bellhop in the Sixties. Mr. Serios, who was able to project mental images onto photographic film, often did so with the lens cap of the camera still in place or by using a camera without a lens. The images created by him were often of recognisable buildings such as the Chicago Hilton, but the images were distorted as if they were the product of faulty memory or imagination. Mr. Serios’s talent was researched by several investigators without their ever being able to furnish an explanation for the pictures created by his mind.
For those interested in ghost photography, the Internet will provide a plethora of websites dealing with this subject. Some are openly sensationalist, others more thoughtful. Many provide tips on how to use the camera as a ghost hunting tool and deal with quite technical aspects such as which kind of film to use, the correct exposure and the most successful printing techniques. The advent of the digital camera has seen an explosion of interest in this field and extensive galleries of ghost photographs can be accessed online.
There exist a multitude of ghost hunters societies and The International Ghost Hunters Society even offers a home study course leading to Ghost Hunter Certification.
www.photographymuseum.com/believe1.html - a gallery of ghost photographs from the American Museum of Photography.
www.paranormalresearchonline.com/articles_02.html - webpage of The Foundation for Paranormal Research dealing with ghost photography. It also provides a library resource listing books and articles of interest not only for ghost photography but the paranormal in general.
Literature:
The World of Ted Serios "thoughtographic" studies of an extraordinary mind. Eisenbud, Jule. Jefferson, N.C. McFarland 1989
