ectoplasm.

SFMOMA's newest exhibit "Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible" is really something. The always awesome curators of MOMA put together a sweet show chronicling the advent of photography and the importance it played in developing observational knowledge in astronomy (the first telescopic photos of the surface of the moon) to the anatomics of biological life to ghostly apparitions.

What really struck a chord with me was their collection of Spirit Photography. I don't know what it is about these old timey long exposures-- but I'm officially obsessed with silly shots of ectoplasms and transparent handlebar moustaches. Despite the obvious falsity of it all, most of these shots are plain creepy.

I've spent hours browsing the interweb and found some seriously legit sites that have done an excellent job of archiving a these photos (not to mention some excellent seance stories).

Here are a few from the American Museum of Photography:

Mrs. Mary Marshall (1930) The ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle manifests in some chick's boogers. Take that Sherlock.

Mrs. Dorothy Henderson

Mrs. Henderson is the medium in a small seance conducted by the Marylebone Spiritualist Association. (Apparently she volunteered in many of the assoc. seances-- what a pasttime).

The Marylebone Assoc. was just one of many dedicated to the exploration of spiritualism. After the end of the Civil War the belief in spiritualism grew when families wished to gain contact with loved ones killed in battle.

On a side note: this reminds me of a Twilight Zone Episode I just watched called The Passerby. TZ's melodramatic Civil War era ghost story has a twist ending that rivals M. Night Shamanamanmanan's weak attempt to shock in The Sixth Sense. Now I need a rainy day to curl up and watch all of Gone With the Wind in one sitting.

William Hope, founder of the Crew Circle, picked up Spirtualism after "accidentally" capturing the image of a ghost while photographing a friend. He then built up a steady business capturing the WWI deceased. Years later he was caught using glass plates to falsify the materialization of spirits in his photographs- oopsies. The National Media Museum has a great Flickr set of William Hope's spirit photographs. Check it out.