The camera captures an image.  It’s nearly always a moment of joy, celebration and living.  But every so often something creeps into the frame…something the photographer didn’t see through the view finder.  And, the wonderful people in image almost never see what is happening behind them…in the bushes, windows, doorways, behind the tombstones or standing beside them.

In the older days of photography, the image was on film.  The cameras were simple.  Darkroom tricks could be used to ‘doctor’ the photo.  The cameras often had the ability to create ‘double exposures’, an easy thing to do.

But, today, with digital photography almost universal, such creative effects can be photoshopped into the picture.  Usually an expert can pick up a doctored photo quite easily.  Even double exposures can be detected.

Still, some things show up on film that cannot be explained.  The experts are baffled.

Personally, I am a skeptic…but I find these ‘spirit photographs’ fascinating in so many ways.

In the end, who knows with absolute certainty what is real and what is not?  Some things cannot passed the ‘scientific method’ and be explained.

So, if you dare…take out some old photos and look them over.  I mean, really look at them with a suspicious eye.  Get a magnifying glass.  What is in the window? A curtain?  What blur is that beyond the large tombstone in the country churchyard?

Do you have a suspicious photo?  Post it.  I would love to see it.

Meanwhile, as we wait the coming full moon and the days of zombies and goblins and ghouls…ponder these photographs:

What’s going on here?

The dog once belonged to a military officer…when the dog was alive.  These students never saw the dog when the portrait was taken.

Who is in the car?  The photographer claims it was an empty junked auto.

The husband stands behind his wife.  She’s still alive.