SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS

Waipawa Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 2499, 30 August 1890, Page 7 (Supplement)

SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS

(pall mall budget.) Spiritualism has received a great impetus by the exhibition of phetogranhs of spirits since the Paris Congress. Credulous people at enco began to have strange visions, founded on the .belief that however trioky mediums might‘be, the photographic plate cannot lie. But it has ©r can be made t© adopt the Balfourian habit of concealing the feuth However sceptical a person maybe, should he visit the studio of Mr. Salmon, -in East Putney, he will be inclined to exclaim “ There aie more things la heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” There will be shown by tho courteous artist a photograph of a young man ; who committed suicide in a garden, the bottle that contained the fatal laudanum lying on the ground near his hand. Over the body hovers the disembodied spirit, its face expressing - pity for the clay beneath. • The spirit, inpalpable and misty, is what the Scotch call the wraith, a , belief that has been handed down from the ancient Egyptians. Another photograph, is that of a "man seated at a table, while opposite, with the head resting on its elbows, sits a spirit. So immaterial is the latter that the part of the table between its body (if a spirit has a body) and elbows can be seen through the arms. Scores of other photographs were shown to the interviewer—spirits hovering round persons, Soaring in the air, mysterious hands in all positions, some sulky, ! some sad, some with uplifted finger as if warning against disaster. “ But surely the people who receive such visitants suffer considerable nervous prostration, and they certainly look happier than the spirits?” The artist, with a laugh, replied, “ They never see the spirits at all. I manufacture the ghosts myself. I expect you to be surprised, but T hope not. as indignant as a celebrated lady in fcno spiritualistic world, who oalled upon m'e a few days ago. She was a firm believer in spiritualism, and was partly converted by some of my published photographs. Having hunted me for some time she found me here, and wanted me to photograph the spirits who visited her. She regarded me with some amount of awe as a dealer in the uncanny sights of the world ; but her reverence soon disappeared when I explained my process.” “How do you produce a spirit photograph ?”—“Well, there are several ways. This one,” he said, pointing to a man in a chair asleep with a spirit stunding near him, “ was done by first photographing a man in the ordinary way with- a black cloth background. Then another person draped, in ghostly garments stands in the required position, but a little out of focus to prevent the outlines being too sharp and corporeal. Light is then onl3 r on the spirit, j and tho same negative as used before is exposed a second time, and all the rest of tho field being black, tho spirit only is photographed. Of course, the second exposure is longer than with ordinary amount of light, but this adds to the ghostliness.” “ But how do yen make thorn so impalpable and uncanny?” “ The room must be i perfectly dark, and ©n the ghost only a ray • of sunlight falls; while dose to tho lens a sheet of fine gauze is hung, and it is the j gauze which gives a olornl-like, luminous \ appearance t© the spirit’• outlines. ’ 1 “ This cannot he done in a durk room, for it is broad daylight, and yet the spirit is addressing the man in the garden eeat, and the rails of the seat cun be seen through the spirit’s form?”—“No, in such a picture I have to take the photograph and expose it a second time, the man still in tho same position, cnly the ghost is added. If ghost and man were taken together, the rails would not appear through the spirit’s form. I liavo still another method. Look at this.” It was a pathetic photograph of a lady looking with piteous eyes at the head of a child posed as if ooming headforemost from heaven. “This is a popular one,” said the artist, “suggestive of the intercourse between living and dead, but the most material of all in preparation. The spirit head is only that of a wax doll, rather out of focus, to prevent it feeing recognised as such. This is photographed first, and the place on the ground glass outside the plate is marked, eo that when the sitter comos she takes such a position that the angel head ready to greet her, when it is printed off, is not interfered with at the second exposure. A similur method is used in this one. It was called ‘ The Ghost of the Bil-liard-room,’ in which the forerunner of Roberts is standing at the elbow of a player, whether to mar ©r mako tho stroke does not appear.” “ Mediums do not bless you, Mr. Salmon, I suppose?” “ No, lam anathema to them, but next month some spirit photographs are to be reproduced in tho ‘ medium ’ of a girl seen at several sennet's and marked with a sabre cut on her face, proving her identity. . I shall also with a stroke of paint on my spirit's face produce some photographs similar to those promised next month, and I am quite sure they will be produced in the same way. The above sketch was taken yesterday, the hand of death covering the lady’s face, which can be seen through the bony fiaans.”