Art, as in life, there is always some mystery. But then there is the unknown. PART ONE

Everyday we go along on our daily routine and then suddenly one day we make the decision to go down a different path, not knowing where it might lead or what the outcome might be. And when we do this, then comes that familiar sensation of entering into the unknown.

In the autumn of 2002, I did just that, but this time my decision to take a different route, took me down a path that literally led me into the world of the real unknown. 
The unknown world of the paranormal.

Being an artist, the world of ghouls, ghosts and phantoms, was not part of my normal daily picture. The only contact with spirits I had ever experienced was with wine being offered to guests at one of my exhibitions. 

It all started when one of my art students brought an eerie image into class that she had created on her home computer using the image program, Photoshop.
She explained that she had created the image after a neighbor had told of his paranormal experience has a child.
"He was 13 years old and it was the first day on his part-time job of helping to deliver milk. As he ran round placing milk bottles on peoples doorsteps, he suddenly saw a young girl skipping. With it being only 5am he thought this was rather strange but did not question it further. He later mentioned it to his boss as he drove him back home. His boss had been the milkman for over 15 years and thus knew the neighborhood very well. He asked the boy which house it was and when the boy told him his face became white. Apparently only two days earlier a young girl had died right at that spot after being run over by a car"
I must admit, the story made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Here is the image she made below.


 
Being an artist, it was not so much the occult that caught my interest, but the idea that spiritual photography / imagery, could become a new art form in itself. It was pretty obvious that these early images were clever fakes using some form of double exposure technique, and as such this effect had set the standard of what a ghost photographed looked like.

                                                

What sparked my imagination was the idea that someone would find it creatively interesting to make a fake ghost image based on the model of a faked ghost image.
This was all well and good, but how could I class such an art theme?

Not surprisingly the head of the art department, (my boss), was against the idea, but I did not give in and fought hard on behalf of my student, stating that;
"the fact that such a project could not be placed into any category is what makes it rather interesting".
I also pressed the point that it was an excellent way for students to learn the new "Layers" function on Photoshop. 
Luckily he agreed, but he was very nervous of the reaction it would bring from the college faculty. Personally I was rather excited about that.

And so the outcome was that the entire class would now have this as their main art project, and as such, every student would now have to make their own fake ghost image. And to make the project more authentic, I stipulated that their images must be based on an actual true paranormal eye witness encounters.
All the students were thrilled with the idea.

As the results of the students work started to materialize (sorry for the pun) the shear weirdness of the images were quite mesmerizing to look at. Like this one below of a person who was a passenger on a plane who claimed to have had a conversation with a child ghost. Apparently the flight crew confirmed that this particular plane was said to be haunted by the ghost of a boy who had died on board of an asthma attack.

             

I found the images quite intriguing and so I decided to arrange for the students to have exhibition of these bizarre spooky works of art, just to see what reaction they would get.
However, as much as I fought for the idea, the student faculty would not have anything to do with it. 

Needless to say the students were extremely disappointed and so to appease them I decided to push the project a step further and combine it with a web page design project.
Web design was also in its infancy in those days. We set up a website and purchased a web domain called, "ghoulsonfilm.com" - under a 3 year owner contract.
It has since vanished off the web.
Here is the website logo that was designed by a group of the students. see below.
                 
This did help student moral somewhat, but they were still haunted by the original idea of having an exhibition, especially as it was perfect timing for Halloween. In the end I decided to use my own studio as the venue of the exhibition.
The college could not stop me from doing that.

I made some posters and placed them all around the town center and within hours I received a phone call from the local newspaper.  Here are a couple of newspaper stories that helped promote the event. See below

                                         

The event actually caused divided opinion within the local council (although I am not supposed to mention that - well it was a long time ago now) Apparently this divided opinion became so tense that one of the internal departments decided to sponsor the exhibition just to prove a point. Therefore this played in my favor. I began to understand that the event could turn out to be quite a specter. (sorry, yet another pun).
Here are some some photographs taken at the Ghouls-On-Film exhibition on the night.
The person with the knife though his head with a white face is me, together with some of the team. See below


In the picture below you can see me on the far right talking with the counsellor who had sponsored the exhibition. He is a powerful politician today. 

There were many images on display at the exhibition, too many to post here.
However, I have chosen four that seemed to be the most popular.
Just to make it more interesting, one of the following images is said to be genuine. I mean it is a real ghost photograph that has supposed to have passed all tests in that it has not been tampered with or can not be determined how the effect was done.
All the stories are true cases, but only one of the four examples is a genuine historical ghost image:- Which is it?
See the four examples below

N01 Grange Park Pub - below
A local pub/bar that was said to be haunted by a former landlord who hanged himself over the bar. People driving past, coming home from their job, often reported seeing strange lighting coming from within the building. Today this building no longer exists. The area is instead used as a car park for a nearby golf club.
Whether players  experience more power in their swing is not known

N02 Rileys Restaurant -below
On a girls night out commonly known as a "hen party" to celebrate that one of the girl´s was  getting married. According to party guests, a strange white mist, "that looked like wool", would occasionally fill the room and then gradually dissipate. One of them took a photo and then later when the film was developed this was seen.


N03 Loyola Monks Monastery - below
The entrance to the monastery was located on the corner of a very dangerous road where there had been numerous car accidents as well as many people being run over.
A road traffic inspector was sent to investigate and set up a VHS video camera to record traffic activity. After viewing several hours of footage this eerie image was captured showing a shadowy figure of a man caught in the headlights of a car .
This image is a "still" taken from the film footage.

 N04 Sherdley Cemetery - below
One of the oldest churches in the town, with also one of the oldest graveyards. Some people visiting to place flowers on the grave of past loved ones, reported to the priest that they had seen the specter of a young girl running between the gravestones as if playing hide and seek. A local man hearing the story began spending a lot of time at the graveyard and after many weeks managed to capture this chilling image.

Below is a few seconds of footage filmed on a cheap digital camera. The quality was not good back in those days but I think it captures the atmosphere.

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OK- Now the story really begins.
For at this exhibition I was approached by a man and woman who had quite an amazing story to tell and now they were asking for my help. This encounter led me onto a path that, to this day, I am unsure whether I would, or should have ever gone down. Even today, I sometimes I wish I could take out of my head of what happened over the next coming weeks.

PART TWO tomorrow

PS: Just to mention: the exhibition was a great success with the three nights being packed out every time. Fascinated visitors thoroughly enjoyed the event which raised many discussions and stories to tell. A year later the London Museum copied the idea exhibiting over 50 paranormal photographs. It had over half million visitors and made a fortune.
My small endeavour was only a fraction of the size of theirs, but I was the first.

All images are my own  - except the old photo of the double expose early ghost photograph by Eugène Thiébault’s