Roland Barthes and Spirit Photography

Figure.1

        In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes says that the photograph’s essence is to ratify what it represents in that every photograph is a certificate of referents’ presence. Even though painters in Renaissance time were very skillful in depicting realistic images, it is nearly impossible to portray the exact reality in the way it exists in nature through painting. Photography, as a scientific process, is free from the unreliablility of human discourse. However, spirit photography, a form of photography practiced from the late nineteenth and flourished during early twentieth century, which insists to capture evidence of ghost or “the invisible” on film seems to challenge common belief about photography: a photographic image is an incontrovertible documentary evidence of real events. In this essay, I will discuss how spiritual photography emerged during 19^th-20^th century and how it has challenged Barthes’ definition of photography. Then I will show that how the seemingly contrasting genre of spirit photography actually conforms to Barthes’ overarching idea of photography.

William Mumler, an amateur photographer, was the first person who publicized the spirit photography that he took. He took a self-portrait in his studio and saw the image of a young woman standing next to him as a result of double exposure. He thought that he could get money from the seemingly ghost picture, and when he first published his ghostly pictures, people were shocked and, at the same time, amazed. As we see, the main purpose of taking spirit photography in early days is obvious: to attract people with marvelous image and earn money from it. As time goes by, spirit photographs, however, brought the Spiritualist’s attention since the Spiritualist movement started to relate its revelations to advanced technology and science after World War I. For sipiriualists, Tom Gunning says, “spirit photography was more than an amusement and could expand their new forms of spiritual manifestation (Gunning 47). Since photography works as a tool which allows people to admit that the thing has been there, the spirit photography proves what the Spritualists belive in: spirits of the dead can manifest themselves in the real life and communicate with the living (Barthes 76). After the Spiritualists’ participation in the spirit photography, a new form of spirit photography emerged, Ectoplasm. Ectoplasm images are violent images in which people wrestle with invisible forces, causing a substance discharge from their insides. Ectoplasms reached their highest peak in terms of popularity just after World War I. Unlike previous spirit photographs which were emotionless, stiff ghost-photographs, ectoplasm photographs directly show human suffer from ghostly entity; they focus on documenting physical impact on human rather than capturing the spirit’s image. Although many spirit photographs faced continual onslaught of dismissals from scientists and journalists, some of ectoplasm photographs appear shocking and outlandish even today (Schoonover 31).

But how were those spirit photographers able to develop such amazing spirit photographs? According to Tom Gunning, artists taking ghostly photographs reflect technological advances. The development of rapid shutter technology allows shorter exposure time than before. With short exposure time, photographers can create clear image under the low-light situation. Light body camera grants photographers to be free from using tripod. Most importantly, advanced camera technology makes it possible to capture movement as more than just a blur which means that the camera can grasp incidental, natural, unseen movements that our human eyes cannot perceive (Gunning 47). With enhanced photo-technical knowledge, photographers are able to manipulate photographs, for example, using lens flare by deliberately letting the light scattered in lens system. 

Figure.2 Tiny clustering lights VS. infinate darkness forever
 by Paul Schiek

Before spirit photographs during the 20^th century were proved as fraud, people have to admit that there is ghost in living world because a photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened (Sontag 3). Applying Barthe’s idea about photography as a tool for proof to spirit photography in the 20^th century, photography becomes a supernatural agency. Through photographic progress, ghost becomes visible to us, and ghost can only be seen through this mysterious photographic technology (Schoonover 33). However, later in 20^th century, photography faced completely new social phenomenon. Previously, a photograph is not just the result of an encounter between an event and a photographer. Photography is an event itself, and act of taking photographs was an unusual and expensive hobby that only few could enjoy (Sontag 8). Nevertheless, photography soon became available to majority of people and has since changed as a commonly beloved hobby to people in the world, and, as photography became more approachable than did before, scientists and experts were able to discover ways spirit photographers manipulated their photographs. Photography suddenly lost its credit as a supernatural agency that has mysterious power to show the “invisible”. As a result, ever since the tricks of those spirit photographs discovered, people have become skeptical about the “ghosts” they see in spirit photographs.

          The spirit photographs in the 20^th century and modern-day spirit photographs actually do not contradict Barthes’ argument. All the tricks that photographers use before the actual moment of photographers clicking the shoot button do not change the “truthness” of photography. Although spirit photoraphs are outputs of photographers’ technical tricks, they reflect the exact same images that cameras see. Cameras do not produce images that do not go through their lens. For example, a photographer takes a photograph using double exposure. Exposured twice, the camera creates an image that combines two different images taken in each exposure. The combined image can never be seen in real life. However, the image is not fake. Each image taken in each exposure directly mirrors how things exist; the image, therefore, does not conflict with Barthes’ idea but actually conforms to it.

Figure.3 Condition of Being by Arnold Joseph Kemp

           Figure.3 is a photograph taken by Arnold Joseph Kemp and exhibited in Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive under the theme, Hauntology. If we look closely, we can see a silhouette of a person's upper shoulder and his neck above his collar. Since the image of the person is too vague, veiled by blurry colors, the photograph appears to be a picture of a male ghost. For people in modern days who have relatively more knowledge about photographic technology than those in 20th century, Kemp's photograph is no more than a profound and mysterious photograph. The discourse about the ghost-like figure is omitted in viewer's mind. In their thinking process, it is an artwork with intentional artistic skill that provides the image an aura of mystery instead of psychic phenomenon. However, his photograph does not challenge Barthes' idea. The image directly reflects what was seen on the camera lens at the given time. 

Figure.4 Sound of Two Hand Angel by Bruce Conner

          Figure.4 is another example of modern photographic artwork created by Bruce Conner. It is a photographic image made without a camera by placing hands directly on to gelatin silver plate. But will people think this as a photograph that captures psychical phenomenon? Although most people who are not experts in photography do not know details of techniques that Brunce Conner used, present generation does not believe that the photograph is the result of an occult event. The photograph records frank presentation of what is exposed in front of camera (in this case, photographic plate). 

           As we see, spirit photographs, which are manipulated before they are taken in such ways like lens flare or multiple-exposures, comply with evidential feature of photography. However, what if a sprit photograph is manipulated after shooting? Nowadays, people can edit pictures they take in ease with more advanced technology. For example, people can use Photoshop program in which they can edit every single little detail of images that they take. They adjust light intensity, chroma, and tonality. The new technology even allows people to make composite photographs with just a few mouse clicks. Anyone who wants to create a ghost photograph can easily make it without profound knowledge about photography.

           In Camera Lucida, Barthes says that painting can feign reality (Barthes 76). Painting is just an act of mere imitation of reality, and the process of imitation includes an artist’s interpretation of the world he or she sees. Like painting, editing feigns reality that is captured in photographs. Edited image tries to be seen as concrete evidence of actuality, but it contains editor’s individual interpretation and intention of reality. On the same note, a photograph that is edited after a photographer has the photograph developed is no more a photograph but a photographic painting. It becomes a painting that simulate unrealistic reality. 

           Spirit photography, from its early history, has never disapproved Barthes' ideological definition of photography. A spirit photograph (here, of course, a picture that has been revised after taking it does not considered as a photograph) captures reality as it is in nature. Question of whether the spirit photograph is a result of mysterious phenomenon or a result of photographer's skillful tricks should be omitted. Spirit photography, therefore, completely falls into Barthes' logic in photography: "the photograph is an extended, loaded evidence which caricatures not the figure of what it represents but its very existence" (Barthes 76). 

          

Bibliography

• Schoonover, Karl. "Ectoplasms, Evanescence, and Photography." Art Journal 3rd ser. 62 (2003): 30-43. Print.
• Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981. Print.
• Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. Print.
• Gunning, Tom. "Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations." Fugitive Images: From Photography To Video. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. 42-71. Print.