Tim Scullion's ghost photography

My reaction is "Either this is what it's claimed to be or it's a blatant fraud". As is often the case with stuff like this, I don't see a middle ground where there's some other mundane explanation (such as camera malfunction or the like), but unlike Typoz, I'm not very knowledgeable about photography, so maybe there's something I'm missing.

Interestingly, the photograph you shared in your post looks quite like an artwork (painting) to me, but that's not to say that it is a fraud, it's just my reaction to it. The guy with his hand over the woman's mouth looks evil, especially his eyes. It's quite a disturbing photograph.

Well, I'm not able to give any particular insight from a technical/photographic angle. The pictures I've seen don't inspire me to look further - low in detail, no idea of location, circumstances, equipment used and what settings, software processing afterwards etc. It is just too much vagueness. If the images are interesting, thought-provoking, conversation starters and so on, that's fine.

I'm considering them to be artistic creations, nothing more.

It may be that there are additional details provided - something about the style of presentation disinclined me to spend time actually reading what was said by the originator. I guess I'm the worst kind of sceptic here, not really looking at the evidence properly. My apologies for that.

Well, I'm not able to give any particular insight from a technical/photographic angle. The pictures I've seen don't inspire me to look further - low in detail, no idea of location, circumstances, equipment used and what settings, software processing afterwards etc. It is just too much vagueness. If the images are interesting, thought-provoking, conversation starters and so on, that's fine.

I'm considering them to be artistic creations, nothing more.

It may be that there are additional details provided - something about the style of presentation disinclined me to spend time actually reading what was said by the originator. I guess I'm the worst kind of sceptic here, not really looking at the evidence properly. My apologies for that.

my reaction was similar.

[Ninshub]

The pictures I've seen don't inspire me to look further - low in detail, no idea of location, circumstances, equipment used and what settings, software processing afterwards etc.

For the picture I posted, you can look at the original blog post where it's from here: you'll get the exact location (Bryan House at Colonial Williamsburg), and possibily other details in the blog post itself.

There are a lot of videos of ghost sightings and ghost hunting at Williamsburg.





Here's Scullion's blog post about his research to understand how ghosts can appear as apparitions. Excerpt:

Being that all of these inner light functions are so dependent on ultraviolet light, you would think that ghosts would only appear in UV light. But given the number of people that have witnessed a “lady in white”, do they only appear in white light? (That said, did you know that white light is actually a combination of all the colors in the visible light spectrum?) From all of the thousands of photographs I’ve taken, I’ve discovered that ghosts will appear in different colors of light, but in many cases it seems as if they are using the surrounding ambient light, giving their appearance the shades of color from their surroundings. The most frequent appearance is white, with shades of ultraviolet as well as infrared light, but there are exceptions. The full-bodied apparitions that I have captured outside any home or building will usually appear in full color, including their clothing. Faces in the windows will usually take on the color of their ambient surroundings, but again there are always exceptions. I feel compelled to return to the Peyton Randolph House to show you some of my best examples of ghosts showing up in just one color of the visible light spectrum, and neither color was part of the surrounding ambient light. If you have seen the color of the Peyton Randolph House during the daylight, it has a dark reddish brown color which at night is quite foreboding, and the lights reflecting in its windows have an amber color. So to assume the surrounding ambient colors, a ghost would be in amber and red, which they often have appeared in those colors (See the 1st photo). But when I captured two ghosts in the same window, different windowpanes, one in green (2nd photo) and the other in blue (3rd photo), I knew that color wasn’t necessarily a rule, so perhaps it’s a choice. I just wonder what the colors had to do with the people these ghosts once were—was it just a favorite color, or does it go deeper than that?

[Ninshub]

A Skeptical look at Scullion's work, although it doesn't take in the photo mentioned here.

For the picture I posted, you can look at the original blog post where it's from here: you'll get the exact location (Bryan House at Colonial Williamsburg), and possibily other details in the blog post itself.

There are a lot of videos of ghost sightings and ghost hunting at Williamsburg.


Here's Scullion's blog post about his research to understand how ghosts can appear as apparitions. Excerpt:

I haven't yet watched the videos, I have no comment to make on those.

As far as I can see from that blog post, most of the text is a rambling attempt at justification for the possibility of such phenomena. And a rather poorly-argued one at that. I could see zero information about what camera was used, what lens, what shutter speed, aperture, focal length and ISO settings. Basic photographic data. Access to the original, unprocessed, full resolution images would be essential. Now given the tiny, low-resolution pictures which appear to be cropped sections comprising perhaps between 3% and 10% of the area of the original image, artificially enlarged using software, and boldly emblazoned with copyright labels, I don't hold out any hope for any such information being forthcoming.

I don't see the text as a serious attempt at describing a research project. It is more of a sales pitch targetted at the customer, much like a fairground sideshow or other such display. To be frank, the work is not presented in a way which allows for serious scrutiny. Not even basic scrutiny, come to that. There is probably a reason for that.

[Ninshub]

Yeah if you look at the Skeptical article and the attempts to communicate with Scullion, this doesn't look good.

I still feel I'm being unfair here. Ideally one should approach a topic like this from a neutral standpoint, and I think I am very definitely biassed against this particular example - maybe unfairly so.

I don't seem to have the energy or enthusiasm to delve very deeply into - well into anything really - at the moment, so my comments are perhaps a bit superficial as well as not entirely neutral.

Previously I missed one of the links posted, this one:
The Bryan House EVPs Tell the Story of One of the Most Compelling, Intimidating Photos I’ve Ever Taken
From there, I notice a couple of photographs. First this, mostly ordinary shot.
   
I've added green arrows to indicate a couple of very ordinary photographic artefacts, examples of lens flare, caused by a bright light source shining directly into the camera lens. The light itself may be off to one side, outside of the picture. I'd also note that the scene is primarily illuminated by a single bright light, just to the right and above the camera position. The shadow of the handrail on the stairs gives a pretty good guide to the position and nature of the light. So, we have a bright light illuminating the scene, and one or more bright light shining into the lens, this second light source doesn't seem to add much to the overall illumination - for example there isn't any second shadow, so it probably shines mostly towards the camera rather than onto the scene.

I mention all this because lighting, shadows and flare may be things which give rise to various artefacts or anomalies. Nothing very unusual here.

Next, I wondered what, if anything, was hidden in the shadows. So I brightened the image using a 'levels' adjustment. The shadows are no longer completely dark, some details can be seen, but not a great deal at this image size.
   

Next, I considered one of the ghost images, this one:
   
I wondered what was hidden in the background shadow area, so I applied exactly the same levels adjustment as before, giving this result.
   
Not much to be seen there. My conclusion is that is image has already been heavily processed to a high contrast setting, giving inky blacks and bright highlights, but not much else. I'm left longing to see the source of this cropped image, the whole rather than just this portion, and before any additional processing. Otherwise all we can really say is that some portion (unknown size) has been cropped, magnified and subjected to various processing to adjust the brightness and contrast - at the very least. How did the originator get from A to B, we cannot tell.

A couple of comments, there are streaks suggesting motion. Possibly this was a long exposure allowing time for a subject to move. Also the eyes, if this is actually a person, it looks rather like the 'red-eye' effect, where a light source close to the camera position (usually a flash) is reflected back from the retina at the back of the eye, in a rather disturbing way. This afflicts a lot of amateur photographs taken a parties or social gatherings, where a flash is used as the light source.

Well, I'm trying to remain neutral here, so I don't reach any conclusions as to what this image actually represents.