When reading Shannon Taggart’s photography article I kept thinking about post mortem photography. What people wanted with post mortem photography, was to have something to remember their loved ones that passed away. I believed that with spiritualism, individuals wanted to also have something to remember their loved ones. Everyone has different ways to deal with the death of a loved one. Some people say their goodbyes and others seek mediums. Now capturing this phenomenons sounds and looks difficult. Shannon’s photographs are very intriguing and it made me believe in spiritualism. Also photographs like this will make many people question if what they see is true. Just like the photographs by Mumler’s people complained that the shadow spirit were fake. Just like religion some people believe in god and others are atheist. Everyone thinks and believes in different things.
I do agree with your point that everyone thinks and perceive the world with different perspective and points of view. My parents are scientists and I grew up in the environment where everyone question supernatural things and try to find scientific explanations.
While reading the article and observing Taggart’s works, at some point I caught myself doubting if these photos are real and are not subject of manipulations or even the results of her own imagination. On the other hand, the experience she shared seemed very intense and real. Maybe if she captured these events with video taping instead of images, it would leave more room for real facts and evidences.
However, it was an interesting read and useful information about people interested in spiritualism and the photographer’s point of view on the matter.
Very well said when you mention “Everyone thinks and believes in different things.” because not everyone are the same. Each individual being has their own take when it comes down to spiritualism. Some believe them strongly while some doesn’t. I personally find these things very intriguing because it’s great to see or know things that are out of ordinary. It’s fun to get more in depth of the supernatural topics. Being able to have a debate whether or not it’s real. Now a days things can be easily manipulated causing more people to feel like it’s fake; which is understandable. However some people that has a strong belief on this subject can disagreed. Bringing us back to everyone having their own view.
While reading the article and looking through Shannon Taggart photographs, I personally think her documentation photograph is not too believable because of the capability of what our camera can do in today generation. While looking through her work it can be easily explained on how she was able to capture it. The most common one is the use of long exposure to create that sense of blurry motion on the people, lights, etc. Although I do find her work to have the sense of supernatural feeling but, I can’t really say that it’s real or believable.