FT261

For as long as there has been photography, people have been finding ghosts wandering into their pictures. During the 1860s, there was quite a craze for spirit photographs (FT205:38–43, 219:36–42), and the digital age has seen a new wave of paranormal pictures. The camera cannot lie, but sometimes it can be very misleading. Exactly how it misleads depends on the technology involved. Early cameras required a very long exposure. In the 1850s, optical pioneer Sir David Brewster noticed that a picture of a boy sitting on a step had been spoiled when the boy got up and left. The rest of the image was clear enough, but the boy’s image was translucent.