Paranormal Photography
Sometimes I can't resist a bit of ghost hunting... and I always keep an open mind if something turns up in my shots. Do I believe in ghosts? Being an evidence based person, I find it hard to... but the chase is fun.
Sometimes I can't explain what I capture through my lens however, and I like the challenge of working out what it is. Sometimes I don't find the answers though... Having both a Masters in Research plus a PhD in Metaphysics usually means I end up sitting on the fence and am left pondering.
They are what they are... enjoy.
Monte Cristo AUSTRALIA
This is a blank wooden doorframe. When I studied the photo, the image of a young girl, appeared. She seems to be sitting on 'something' that isn't visible.
I highlighted the overall settings in the image so that the outline of the girl could be seen more clearly. However, the actual girl wasn't edited in any way.
The image was captured at one of Australia's most haunted houses - Monte Cristo in Australia. I wasn't expecting anything from my visit but took my camera long 'just incase' anything unexpected showed up. In the most 'haunted room at Monte Cristo, I felt nothing. No icy chills, no strange wind... no sense of fear. It was just a room.
I was taking a picture of the formal dining room on the ground floor on my way out.
I got rid of the background and highlighted it and you can see in the image to the right (below If on a mobile).
It's the image of a young woman with long hair sitting on something - as if there had been a chair in position at one point and she is sitting on it.
She is wearing a white dress with black stockings.
After showing it to the Monte Cristo expert, she said she believed that a maid had fallen from the balcony and had died. This was only a few metres away from where the photo was taken. The maid's outfit at the time would have been similar. There was a suggestion that the maid was pregnant and had jumped to her death. I wondered if this was when she had been sitting waiting for a formal interview before hand perhaps?
The doorframe was plain wood and there were no shadows on it at the time of the image being taken.
Typical maid's uniform from the time.
Whilst at Monte Cristo I took pictures of some of the old carriages that were in a shed away from the main building. To be honest, I was just snapping everything at this point - when I took a good look at this picture, a shiver ran down my spine.
Some people see the image I captured immediately and others can't see it at all... that's one of the weird aspects to this photograph... its ability to be both blatant and invisible.
I asked Monte Cristo about it and they said that the carriage didn't actually belong to anyone at Monte Cristo and it had been brought in from the town.
I have suggested it could be the image of Crawley (who owned the homestead originally) because of the resemblance - but to be honest, it could be anyone. When you see it, you can't un-see it.
The hat, smoke from the cigar, face and left hand in particular. This was an empty carriage so there shouldn't have been anything in it - similar to the other side which is visibly empty. In fact, you can see the brickwork through the carriage.
I would be interested to know if Crawley smoked cigars.
The image of Crawley was apparently painted by his wife and it hangs at Monte Cristo.
I've added outlines to body parts to help define the image here. The cigar in the left of the image has smoke above it. Distinct hat, hand, face.
Without the added body parts
Remember - there was nothing in the carriage at the time the picture was taken.
My visit to the old Gladstone jail in South Australia.
I took twenty photos all in the same spot, changing nothing. I held my breath, remained stationary and clicked. No-one moved behind me, the light didn't change and I kept as still as possible. This is photo 8 out of the series of twenty. I will try to find one of the other shots to show how blank and clean the wall was in the other photos.
There is a distinct shadow that appears in this photo only. In all the others, the wall is free of shadows and is simply a white wall. There is no furniture in the room and only one small window.
I sent this photo off for analysis with a mathematician/physicist to see if there was any way that the shadow could have appeared given everything else remained constant. They said 'no' after looking through the data. Given I wasn't using flash or artificial lighting, there wasn't anything that I did, to bounce any shadows into the room.
I showed the gaol the photo and they said that the beds would have been raised off the floor slightly and that they wondered if it was an image of someone sitting on the bed, leaning slightly forwards, as that was the side of the room where the bed used to be.
Note: When trying to capture paranormal activity, I always take a series of shots keeping my constants the same. Often, strange things show up moving across the walls as happened in the next photo.
Gladstone Gaol South Australia
This was an empty room in D Wing.
There was one window in the room to the left of me.
The wall to the right was bare in the first few snaps - a plain yellow tinged wall.
Then, in a series of three photos a large ochre shadow made its way across the wall.
There was no-one outside that resulted in a moving shadow, nor clouds in the sky. Before I took this photo,
I made sure that I was alone so that external influences wouldn't corrupt my series of shots.
I did not move my position and held my breath to avoid any camera movement.
The Gaol reported that this was the indigenous women's wing.
In the first photo, the shadow looks like the side profile of someone walking.
The 13 Orbs in Ballarat, Victoria
I took some shots at the old Ballarat gaol and captured several images, containing a total of thirteen orbs.
The photograph below, shows some of these orbs.
Repeated shots in the same place show these appearing and disappearing in quick succession.
I did some subsequent research to discover that 13 people had been hanged there.
Another photo from this shoot also captured an indigenous face looking out at me from a window.
There isn't anyone to speak to about the Ballarat Gaol when you are there, as it is now part of Federation Uni. Any research has to be done online.
Apparently, they buried the hanged men standing up, facing west, so that they could never the rising sun again.
Only six bodies however, were ever recovered.
Some say that orbs are simply dust particles...
Others say they are souls
Another other photo in which I have which captured paranormal activity was on Churchill Island Victoria at the old farmstead.
One to dig out of the archives for this page. It features a detailed angel on the back of an old leather chair. Random I know - but quite a beautiful shot.