Hours with the ghosts, or, Nineteenth century witchcraft : illustrated investigations into the phenomena of spiritualism and theosophy . nd the halo was put on afterward, when the plate hadbeen dried. The halo was made by rubbing vignet-ting paste on the back, thus shutting out the light andleaving the paper its original hue. The white shad-owy heads which are frequently shown in black coats,and which the mediums claim cannot be explained,are also done in this manner with vignetting paste, thepicture being afterward centred over these places,which will be white, the final result showing soft a
Hours with the ghosts, or, Nineteenth century witchcraft : illustrated investigations into the phenomena of spiritualism and theosophy . nd the halo was put on afterward, when the plate hadbeen dried. The halo was made by rubbing vignet-ting paste on the back, thus shutting out the light andleaving the paper its original hue. The white shad-owy heads which are frequently shown in black coats,and which the mediums claim cannot be explained,are also done in this manner with vignetting paste, thepicture being afterward centred over these places,which will be white, the final result showing soft andindefinite, and giving the required spiritual look. Mr. Dinwiddie did not attempt to produce the hazyeffect, but this is very easily accomplished in the pho-tograph by taking the spirit heads a trifle out of claims that all of these apparent spiritual manifes-tations are but tricks of photography, and ones whichmight be accomplished by the veriest tyro, if he wereto study the matter, and give his time to the experi-ment. It is only a wonder that the mediums do notdo more of it. The photograph mediums have always claimed. FIG. 30—SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH BY PRETENDED MEDIUM. SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. 197 that they were set upon by photographers for busi-ness reasons, but Mr. Dinwiddie is employed by thegovernment and has no interests whatever in such adispute. The eminent authority on photography, Mr. WalterE. Woodbury, gives many interesting exposes of me-diumistic photographs in his work, PhotographicAmusements, which the student of the subject would dowell to consult. Fig. 30, taken from PhotographicAmusd^nts is a reproduction of a spirit photographmade by a photographer claiming to be a medium. SaysMr. Woodbury: Fortunately, however, we were inthis case able to expose the fraud. Mr. W. M. Murray,a prominent member of the Society of Amateur Photo-graphers of New York, called our attention to the simi-larity between one of the spirit images and a portraitpainting by Sichel, th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksub, booksubjectspiritualism
