Anomalous Photographs

A lot of the photographs we are sent in showing anomalies are taken by accident.  I have shown this picture before on our other forum but it is a favourite of mine. 

It turned out, much to the relief of the person who took it to be reflection of a snooker trophy.

I would like to think they spotted that quickly for themselves. Although it makes my mind boggle as to what else they were trying to photograph as there doesn't appear to be much else in the picture occurring.

The story was that the mother just took a picture of her garden, saw the image and got immediately worried.  She didn't realise what it was to begin with and stopped her children playing outside whilst she sought help.  She sent the piscture in and we asked her to look for what it could be a relection of, hence she then discovered the answer for herself.  However, it is a good example of genuine accidental photograph that led to some very real worry.

I think you may have been fitted up Ian. This picture shows nothing worthy of taking a picture of the garden for. There is only the fence in shot. In any case if you were going to seriously take a photo of your garden you would probably go outside to take it not take it through a window with the sun glaring at it. Given that and that the 'tin man' isperfectly poised in the right position to look like a midget in the garden hoeing I recon it was a set up which, quite rightly, you saw through.

You can't always believe peoples accounts when they send stuff. Frequently an examination of the exif data will show that their accounts are lies as we have found with some we have been sent.

Excellent point Dave, but in this case no harm was done as we never believed it was anything more than a reflection.  Rather than accuse anyone of hoaxing we just accepeted it as a great picture.

I have come across pictures that are bare faced lies in the past and supposed video footage of apparitions so I do understand your point and it is something we all have to consider when reviewing submitted pictures.

On the contrary, people frequently take photos of 'nothing special', to other peoples' eyes. I'm sure if you saw some of my photos you'd ask, 'what is it of?'. We all take a different of the world and it is reflected in the photos we take. I certainluy can't see the point of many otgher people's photos! I wouldn't use apparent 'aimlessness' as pointing to anything in particular when analysing photos.

Also, let us not forget that occasionally images are taken of ghosts that are not deliberate fakes.  Take, for example, the early box type cameras that were notorious for having light 'leaks' that would create 'ghosts' on the final image.

One does not need long exposures to have malfunctioning equipment give you a ghost.

I've examined thousands of anomalous photos and only one or two were deliberate fakes. In the vast majority of cases they are photographic artefacts, like long exposures or orbs. Another large category is people seeing things that are not there in the detail of photos (at or beyond the resolution of the shot).