Photographing A 'Ghost'

A provocative title perhaps, however this is probably one of the strangest things that ever happened to me photographically.

Readers of FB will know that I have long railed against digital photography, however I have often used it!

Starting with the Lumix DMC-FS6, through to a Canon EOS 50D with 40mm pancake; a side road into a Sony A6000 with a Metabones adapter and then the Sony kit 16-50 lens; all via a visit into the world of biggish SLRs in the form of a D300 plus 18-70 DX zoooooom. 

I've actually owned more digital cameras than Bruce from the Online Darkroom, but not quite as many as my friend who must have gone through about 15 (and still has them).

My main thing (along with the inevitable: how am I going to keep this lot organised?) has also been the intangibility of medium. 

Sure it is there onscreen and you might have even printed it out . . . but it really isn't the same as reaching into a cabinet, locating the right folder and pulling out a sheet of negatives.

I find the stack-ups of duplicates and also-rans quite frustrating.

Now I realise the odds of me seeming normal in this nouveau world are about 20 Trillion To 1, so I have decided that rather than hiding in the corner, clutching my head, I am going to go down fighting.

As such I started reviewing all my old digital 'negatives'; trying to get stuff organised and unduplicated and into some sort of ship-shape and Bristol fashion.

And one morning, I got a surprise.

Entity or Tramp?

Many moons ago, whilst on holiday in Rome (and toting the D300 AND a Leica AND a small Lumix!) we came across this chap. 

It was very sad - Rome has plenty of homeless people, rather like most cities these days - you just feel so helpless. 

Anyway, after some debate and the fact he seemed to look sooo peaceful (despite his lot in life) I quickly stepped back and took the above photograph.

Walking off down the road I debated with myself, simply because I am not fond of such photography. Anyway, a couple of hundred yards away, we looked back and there he was, standing upright. 

He was making pulling movements with his hands rather like he was bringing in a net. 

I thought it very strange. 

As he was looking back down the road at us, it also looked like he almost knew us and was being friendly and doing some sort of strange wave.

Off his nut I thought in typical Scots fashion and thought no more of it, until, after an exhausting day in red-hot heat, we got back to our hotel and I had a quick review of the images.

He wasn't there.

VERY ODD were my initial thoughts - I hunted through the memory card plenty more times, but him and his image had definitely vanished into thin air.

I'm not given to too many flights of fancy these days, however, the more I thought on this, the more I wondered if maybe I had photographed 'someone' or 'something' I wasn't meant to photograph.

Had his gesticulating and the pulling in of his 'net' actually been something else?

Had he actually taken back the image I had taken from him?

Daft eh?! Well, I am usually up early and drink too much tea, so you can probably add those into the equation.

You could probably call my thinking fanciful - I certainly did over the intervening years. 

I reviewed my Rome images more times than I can remember; playing out that scenario in my head loads of times, to no avail. 

But no matter what I thought, one thing was certain . . . . 

He had gone.

Then, a few weeks back, whilst having a weed-out of old photos (all [before you question my storage options] from the same place they are usually stored) - there he was.

Still asleep on that warm Roman morning; as peaceful as ever, but back in my life.

I was so shocked (and joyful!) I immediately called t'missus (who had obviously known about it from day one.)

She was pretty astonished too.

I have no idea how this happened (or indeed what happened) but it did, and just as I have told it. 

Did I photograph something or someone I was never meant to photograph? 

Is it possible that they pulled back that digital file . . and if so . . why has it reappeared now?

Was there any chance the physical world (albeit 1's and 0's) could be disrupted in such a way?

I really don't know - there's far more going on (despite our pretensions) than we're ever aware of in my opinion.

Whatever it was that happened, I have no real explanation.

And indeed no LOGICAL explanation either.

All I can say now is that if he/it was operating on some other plane, maybe they could help me get back my old Lumix which was (how shall we say?) requisitioned by some lovely person after being accidentally left on a park bench for 5 minutes on that same holiday . . . . 

Till the next time. watch out for the explicable.

H xx