Living in the days of photoshop and other image editing software make things hard for those in search of real evidence of ghosts or the paranormal. Imagine living in a time when nothing as we know it existed. Imagine living in a time where computers or even basic technological advances were non existent. How easy would it have been to be fooled by someone claiming to have photographed a real ghost? Thats just what William Hope used to his advantage.
William Hope was a photographer in the late 19th century who had figured out how to create double exposures. He used this new found skill to cause faces and other things to appear in photographs. This would have been okay, had he not used this talent to manipulate unsuspecting families into paying him money for the pictures. He was able to convince people who had lost someone close to them that he could make contact with the dead and that they would manifest themselves through his ghost pictures.
Considering the day and age that Hope lived in, his ability to create ghost pictures was very impressive. Some would even cause modern day society to take a scond glance. It’s not hard to imagine how emotional the families of the deceased must have ben upon viewing the photographs.
Fortunately for us, image manipulation is common place these days and most people are not as easily tricked. From another perspective, one could think that William Hope had commited victimles crimes, by providing the familes of the dead, some type of happiness or closure, while providing himself a little pocket change. Either way you look at it, William Hope was a pioneer of photography in some ways and a spark that lit the flames of internet hoaxsters and photoshoppers everywhere. A few of Hope’s fake Ghost Pictures can be seen in the gallery below.
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