Spiritualism

Spiritualism appeared in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. Its followers believed that they could communicate with the dead and with spirits. In France, the movement became especially popular during the Second Empire, thanks in particular to its main theorist, Allan Kardec (1804–1869).

What better way to prove that spirits existed than with a photograph? The first attempts to photograph spirits took place in the United States around 1850. Soon afterwards, studios specialising in spirit photography opened in European capitals.

These ghostly pictures were not real. Photographers used a technique called double exposure, taking two images on the same photographic plate. They could also retouch the photograph with gouache paint to make the effect even more convincing.

In the photograph shown here, the “ghost” is actually a person who happened to walk through the scene while the photograph was being taken. Because the camera needed a long exposure, the person appears as a transparent, ghost-like figure.

Despite the scandals surrounding spirit photography, the public loved these mysterious images. What might look like a photographic mistake reminds us that, in its early days, photography was sometimes associated with magic and witchcraft.

Today, AI also shows us that even when a photograph is supposed to show us reality, images can still deceive us. Artists such as Ivan Terestchenko, who specialises in photographs of interiors, continue to explore this ghostly effect. Creating it requires great skill—or, for amateurs, it can be done more easily with a filter.