15 year old ghost mystery possibly solved

[monoman]

Well i'm convinced now due to similarity between the hat curls and dress folds round the waist.

So, what technique do you think was used, 15 years ago, to superimpose the image behind the railings?

I'm pretty sure these kind of techniques have been around since the birth of photography but I don't know the details.

 

[Vortigern99]

Double exposure. The film is exposed twice. A manual winding camera can achieve this easily, and some cameras are actually made with multiple exposures in mind.

 

[Stray Cat]

Photoshop was capable of doing it 15 years ago.
Traditional photographic double exposure methods would produce a result too. But to pin down the method used, it may help to have access to the negative.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Are there any pictures of the town hall available ?

It's not like the railing has any intricate scroll work or anything; it's just a bunch of straight lines..

 

[monoman]

Photoshop was capable of doing it 15 years ago.
Traditional photographic double exposure methods would produce a result too. But to pin down the method used, it may help to have access to the negative.

I'm making a few assumptions for why I don't think he would have used photoshop: -

(1) He was an amateur photographer and presumably photoshop cost a bomb 15 years ago - and was only available on the Mac. (I may be confusing this with cubase though).

(2) He's dead now, so he may have been knocking on a bit then and therefore not your usual candidate for a Mac and photoshop. (Macs are rare in the UK outside of the design industry).

 

[JcR]

I still think I see the postcard girl and part of the street in the burning hotel picture.

 

[Stray Cat]

I'm making a few assumptions for why I don't think he would have used photoshop: -

(1) He was an amateur photographer and presumably photoshop cost a bomb 15 years ago - and was only available on the Mac. (I may be confusing this with cubase though).

I too am an 'amateur photographer', but a professional graphic designer and I have had access to Photoshop for about 18 years.

2) He's dead now, so he may have been knocking on a bit then and therefore not your usual candidate for a Mac and photoshop. (Macs are rare in the UK outside of the design industry).

Or he may have been run over by a bus aged 40?
Besides in the Ad agencies I have worked in, there have been plenty of 'old' people who you wouldn't think would have the computer skills... well, that's why they employed us young 'uns to do the tricky work.

So although your assumptions may have some merit, they don't rule it out.

PS: I'm in the UK, I have been a Mac owner/user for 20 years.

 

[CORed]

Photoshop was capable of doing it 15 years ago.
Traditional photographic double exposure methods would produce a result too. But to pin down the method used, it may help to have access to the negative.

Or negatives. It could be a composite produced on an enlarger from two negatives, or a double exposure produced in a camera with one. Photographic fakery has been around a lot longer than Photoshop. Photoshop just made it easier.

When I was a kid, My mom accidentally took a wonderful double exposure in Yellowstone, of a bear in the bottom of a hot spring pool.

 

[JcR]

So this is supposed to be Jane Churm. A pyromaniac ghost.

 

[JcR]

The great fire at Wem

http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/roots/places/wem/garbet/wem40.htm

 

[LTC8K6]

And I don't understand how any sceptic could be so certain at this point.

I read the thread.

 

[JcR]

New Town Hall

Old burning Town Hall.

Picture of Town Hall before Fire?

(Insert Picture)

 

[Stray Cat]

I read the thread.

Aaaaahhh.... 'scepticism by consensus of opinion then'... righty oh.

 

[Careyp74]

To clarify, I'm not saying it isn't, just that there are differences. When time allows I'll have a closer look at both pictures and compare them pixel by pixel.

What differences are you talking about? You have replied a bunch of times to other posts since first talking about differences, how about listing them?

Aaaaahhh.... 'scepticism by consensus of opinion then'... righty oh.

I think he was saying that anyone that read the article would come to the same conclusion as him, not because of everyone else saying it is so, but of the evidence presented.

I still think I see the postcard girl and part of the street in the burning hotel picture.

It appears that the postcard was cropped so that the dark areas around her didn't show up in the fire photo, however there is the straight edge of the door trim on her left side that "made the cut" Also, the shadow on the left side of her blouse stays in the fire photo.

 

[JcR]

It appears that the postcard was cropped so that the dark areas around her didn't show up in the fire photo, however there is the straight edge of the door trim on her left side that "made the cut" Also, the shadow on the left side of her blouse stays in the fire photo.

The base of the pillar, left of the girl ETA: On her left in the postcard picture.
I can see it ever so faintly in the burning ghost picture. Plus maybe part of the wall on her left.

I had seen a bowling pin ghost when I was little. Why not pillar ghosts to?

 

[Stray Cat]

What differences are you talking about? You have replied a bunch of times to other posts since first talking about differences, how about listing them?

My animation shows differences, I said when I have time, I'll do a blow up to point them out. Meanwhile anyone is quite free to do that for themselves, unless they are easily satisfied by the 'remarkably similar' appearance of both pictures to not bother looking further.

I think he was saying that anyone that read the article would come to the same conclusion as him, not because of everyone else saying it is so, but of the evidence presented.

The evidence presented is someone has looked at two pictures and noticed they are remarkably similar. That to me is not conclusive evidence, it's subjective opinion.

 

[Careyp74]

My animation shows differences, I said when I have time, I'll do a blow up to point them out. Meanwhile anyone is quite free to do that for themselves, unless they are easily satisfied by the 'remarkably similar' appearance of both pictures to not bother looking further.

What you call remarkably similar has already been shown, by you, I might add, to be the exact same image.

The evidence presented is someone has looked at two pictures and noticed they are remarkably similar. That to me is not conclusive evidence, it's subjective opinion.

How would that have anything to do with what you call scepticism by consensus of opinion?

 

[Careyp74]

looking at the two pics in that morph, the only movement that I could discern is the inclusion of a door and railing, and the disappearance of her right side. all distinguishable features remain intact. Shadows, folds, lines, all there. Nothing changes position, it either appears, or disappears, depending on what is being added to, or taken away from the photo due to cropping.

If there are any lines or shadows that do change position please point them out.

 

[Stray Cat]

What you call remarkably similar has already been shown, by you, I might add, to be the exact same image.

No, it has been shown to be a remarkably similar image.
No one has shown it to be the exact same image because the level of detail does not allow such a conclusion and there are differences that although could be explained (as a possibility only) by the technique used for a double exposure, do not allow me to be certain that it is a different picture.

How would that have anything to do with what you call scepticism by consensus of opinion?

You all seem certain when the evidence doesn't allow such a certainty.

 

[JcR]

Here is the biggest picture of the candle burner I have found.