Tim Scullion's ghost photography

[Ninshub]

Tim Scullion is an American who worked as a guide at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia (which I've visited, very cool), discovered people were having apparitions appear on the photos they were taking, and then set about researching this intensely with his own photography, and publishing books about it.

Some of these pictures are pretty striking. Like this one:



Any reactions or thoughts? Do you think "this has to be fraud", or "there has to be another mundane explanation"?

Coast to Coast just did a piece on him and show some of the pictures here. Or you can look at his blog, such as this page from where this photo was taken. There are several podcast interviews with him available if you search his name on youtube.

This reminds me of a question I once asked on this forum, "Is it Possible to Photograph the Paranormal?". I do tend to veer towards the sceptical when it comes to photographic anomalies of any kind. They may come in various types, varying from deliberate creative acts, 'happy accidents' where making some sort of mistake leads to an interesting image, and found or discovered anomalies, almost always faces or human figures. For example in the 'happy accident' category I once briefly opened the back of a film camera and let light fall on the undeveloped film. The result was almost like a fire or flames across one of the scenes.

Rather odd to block the faces of ghosts.

[Ninshub]

Rather odd to block the faces of ghosts.

What do you mean Steve? Do you mean the pictures in the casino where there are black oval circles on the faces? It's because those are real people and he's protecting their identities. The ghosts are other figures in the shots.

[Laird]

Any reactions or thoughts? Do you think "this has to be fraud", or "there has to be another mundane explanation"?

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.

What do you mean Steve? Do you mean the pictures in the casino where there are black oval circles on the faces? It's because those are real people and he's protecting their identities. The ghosts are other figures in the shots.

I only gave a casual glance.

[Ninshub]

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.

Yeah other pictures he's got also look like paintings to me. Like the ones I linked to his blog post.

It’s hard to comment really. I briefly looked at the webpages but there didn’t seem much to show the provenance of the photos <shrug>.

This reminds me of a question I once asked on this forum, "Is it Possible to Photograph the Paranormal?". I do tend to veer towards the sceptical when it comes to photographic anomalies of any kind. They may come in various types, varying from deliberate creative acts, 'happy accidents' where making some sort of mistake leads to an interesting image, and found or discovered anomalies, almost always faces or human figures. For example in the 'happy accident' category I once briefly opened the back of a film camera and let light fall on the undeveloped film. The result was almost like a fire or flames across one of the scenes.

I think my question would be “how can you know if someone has photographed the paranormal” lol.

I think my question would be “how can you know if someone has photographed the paranormal” lol.

Yeah, I didn't want to distract too much from the current thread, but the old topic is here:  Is it Possible to Photograph the Paranormal?