Ghost(s)? - 1993

"When an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he roams through the dry places in search of rest, and finds none. Then he says, 'I will return to my house which I left'; and when he comes to it he finds the place unoccupied, swept, and decorated. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked then himself, and they enter in and dwell there." -- Matthew 12.

Background: Back in 1993 I was in the process of starting up my consulting business, and was designing a logo for my letterhead. Essentially, I would design a graphic on the computer, print it out in very large scale on my dot matrix printer, photograph the result using high-contrast techniques, and then reduce it in the darkroom. I had used this technique before, and the shrinking process essentially eliminated all of the dot-matrix jaggies.

I was in the process of making the final prints - I was using poly-contrast paper & the highest contrast filters, in order to reduce the image to pure blacks and whites. I started the timer and my enlarger flashed and then the bulb went dead. I left the darkroom, undoubtedly fogging the paper, though the outside room was in semi darkness, drove to the photo store, purchased a new bulb & returned. When I got back I replaced the bulb (under the safe light, which was still on), and put another sheet of paper into the easel. Only when I dropped the paper into the developer did I notice that I had left the original sheet easel, and saw that the damaged image was rapidly turning black. I slipped both sheets into the fix, washed them & hung them both up to dry. (I had noticed some figuring on the 'black' print, and figured it might inspire an abstract painting at some point.)

Later, when examining the dry image, I noticed the semblance of a face on it that sent a chill down my spine. At the time, my wife was out of town on business, and I don't mind confessing that I was extremely loathe to be alone in the house until she returned. When she got back, late that night, she immediately sensed that something was wrong. Reluctantly, I showed her the picture. She immediately recognized a vaguely human countenance, however, as we discussed it, we both realized that she was seeing a totally different 'face,' and was even more disturbed when I pointed out the one that I had seen. Later, as we showed it to others, the scenario was repeated. Ultimately, we 'identified' seven different faces, though some require a bit more stretch of the imagination than others.

Oh yes . . . My first inclination was to assume that, due to my usual sloppy darkroom habits, I had allowed one or more stray negatives to get caught up in the enlarger somewhere. However, after ripping it down to every last piece, I had to abandon that particular theory. Next, I figured that it might have been the result of some stray reflections (especially in light of the area in the upper right that appears to be some kind of screen.) Once again, a careful inspection of the darkroom suggested no possibilities.

Our parish priest (who thereafter refused to set foot in our house) suggested the quotation cited above after seeing the photo. There's more to this story, but that's a tale for another time . . .

(Note: This picture has proven extremely difficult to display -- what you see above is only a small portion of the detail. If you download it (right click on the image & then choose "save image as . . ." you can then view it with paintshop pro or other viewer & see the full detail. Make sure your viewer is set for 'grayscale' for best results.)

In order to identify what I see in this picture, thehere's the same picture, worked over using photoshop to emphasize a few of the 'faces'.

Since they all tend to overlap, bringing one to the foreground obscures others. Here are a few more enhanced images.