The fact that William Hope’s collection of “ghost” photography first came out in the 19th century might make you think that they have to be real. Before the days of photoshop and digital editing, a picture was a pictures, right? Wrong. Hope and his gang of morally ambiguous followers, the “Crewe Circle” discovered how to double-expose photos to make pictures that seemed to reveal spirits hovering next to people.
The results are still quite startling, even almost a century later. It’s no wonder even smart, savvy people like Arthur Conan Doyle bought in to the hoax before the photos were exposed as fakes in 1922. You can check out a slide show of his work, which the U.K. Guardian posted recently to celebrate Halloween.
The Crewe Circle didn’t use their photographic skills for good, unfortunately. They created the ghostly images then sold them to people who had lost loved ones and desperately wanted them back.
The Hope collection of photographs might have been created for nefarious purposes, but they make a great excuse to have a fun conversation with your kids that touches on history, technological developments and Halloween.
Happy Halloween!
