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190 - The Bizarre True History of Spirit Photography: A Halloween Replay · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:05
  Casey Fatchett: Hello, my spooky little listeners. We have
• 0:07
  another Halloween season treat in store for you-a re-release of
• 0:10
  my interview with Dr. Emily Zarka, the host of Monstrum on
• 0:14
  PBS. Episode of which are streaming online, and you should
• 0:17
  definitely check out. We discuss the histories of monsters in
• 0:20
  photography, the rise of spirit photography, and much more. So
• 0:24
  sit back and enjoy. Hello, and welcome to the Nerdy
• 0:34
  Photographer Podcast. I am your host Casey Fatchett, and it is
• 0:37
  still spooky season here on the podcast, and I am so excited for
• 0:41
  the guest for this episode. I am joined by Doctor Doctor Zarka,
• 0:47
  who is the host of Monstrum on PBS Digital. Doctor Zarka,
• 0:51
  welcome!
• 0:52
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:55
  Casey Fatchett: Oh, you're absolutely welcome. Can you tell
• 0:57
  our listeners? Our listeners might not be familiar with your
• 0:59
  show. I've watched your show. Tell them a little bit about
• 1:03
  Dr. Emily Zarka: it. Absolutely. So, Monstrum is an online
• 1:06
  YouTube show on the channel Storyed, part of PBS, and I take
• 1:11
  a look at how human history is monster history. So, every
• 1:15
  episode looks at a particular monster across any part of the
• 1:18
  world, and I do my research and try to get to the whys and hows
• 1:22
  of why the monster was created.
• 1:24
  Casey Fatchett: I, I honestly, this is like it speaks to me
• 1:26
  deeply because on a level of from being a teenager, the same
• 1:30
  sort of thing, like always being curious about different types of
• 1:33
  monsters and like what's the backstory and where did this
• 1:36
  come from, and our talking to one another all started on
• 1:40
  Twitter because someone was asking about in a Twitter thread
• 1:43
  about photographing vampires, and we had differing opinions on
• 1:47
  why you can't photograph a vampire. Like I don't know what
• 1:50
  you can tell me why you think a vampire can't be photographed.
• 1:54
  Unknown: So I think that the legend of why vampires can't be
• 1:57
  photographed comes from the popular belief in some vampire
• 2:00
  stories that they don't have souls. There's another variation
• 2:04
  where vampires can't be photographed because of the
• 2:07
  original exposure process involving silver back in the
• 2:11
  1860s, I believe. But vampires weren't traditionally perceived
• 2:15
  as actually being capable of being harmed by silver. So I
• 2:18
  think vampires can't be photographed because they don't
• 2:21
  have souls, is the stronger piece of folklore in my mind.
• 2:24
  Casey Fatchett: Okay, so I mean our disagreement there-it's a
• 2:27
  friendly disagreement here. We mine, mine was the silver
• 2:30
  because it wasn't didn't have to do with like they were weakened
• 2:32
  by silver. It was when in my research what I had read was
• 2:35
  because of the purity of the metal, being an impure being,
• 2:40
  they did not show up in like mirrors because of the silver
• 2:44
  backing on mirrors or the silver that was used in photographs.
• 2:48
  Which you know, if that was the case, then you know you could
• 2:51
  photograph you know vampires pretty easily now with digital
• 2:55
  photography because we don't use silver. But I'm gonna we're
• 2:58
  gonna go with your logic. You're the expert, so by the same logic
• 3:01
  and rules of like not having a soul, what other monsters would
• 3:06
  you know? What would what would happen when you try to
• 3:07
  photograph other monsters? How about werewolves?
• 3:11
  Dr. Emily Zarka: So werewolves, from my research, usually do
• 3:15
  have souls because they were once human or are human at the
• 3:18
  same time, right? That's kind of the dichotomy of the whole
• 3:20
  werewolf situation, so I would say yes, werewolves can be
• 3:23
  photographed, unless we are going with the silver that they
• 3:26
  definitely can't. So that one gets a little muddy, but
• 3:30
  Casey Fatchett: I can't look in a mirror to shave. Right?
• 3:35
  Dr. Emily Zarka: No, I think so. Werewolves are a definite can be
• 3:38
  photographed. Something like a mummy, though, if we're talking
• 3:41
  about Egyptian mummies, the ancient Egyptians believed that
• 3:45
  your soul goes to the afterlife or is eaten, so mummies could
• 3:49
  not be photographed.
• 3:50
  Casey Fatchett: Well, I mean, okay, so let's go with maybe
• 3:52
  like a Arthur Conan Doyle mummy. Like, but what happens when the
• 3:56
  mummy comes back? Is like, isn't it the soul of the the spirit
• 3:59
  coming back at that point, like yes, for vengeance. That's
• 4:03
  Dr. Emily Zarka: true. So if the mummy was animated by the soul
• 4:07
  of the deceased, then they could be photographed.
• 4:11
  Casey Fatchett: Okay, that logic works. Yeah, I'm just trying to
• 4:13
  figure it out. Like I'm trying to figure out the logic. Then
• 4:15
  zombies. We're like I think it might depend on the type of
• 4:17
  zombies we're talking about. Definitely, because there are so
• 4:21
  many different zombie legends from around the world. But this
• 4:24
  brings me to ghosts, and I have so many thoughts and feelings on
• 4:31
  spirit photography of different kinds. And I've been on a ghost
• 4:35
  hunt, and there's just like I find that there's a lot of
• 4:40
  there's a lot of ways to fake ghosts in photography and video,
• 4:43
  and people like they, I don't know, want to believe they're
• 4:47
  seeing ghosts, and there are other things that like I'm,
• 4:52
  though a believer, I'm a very skeptical believer, and the.
• 5:00
  Like when you know seeing ghost hunting footage and people like
• 5:02
  oh it's an orb, I'm like well actually that's dust or that is
• 5:08
  a lens flare and it's like you know looking at things and being
• 5:10
  like I can tell what that is. I'm sure they're unexplained
• 5:13
  things, but I find that like I mean according to our what we're
• 5:17
  going with a soul, ghosts would definitely be able to be
• 5:20
  photographed, you would think.
• 5:22
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Yeah I would think so. And I mean, that's
• 5:25
  where the idea of spirit photography came from in the
• 5:28
  1860s, anyway. As well as alongside the spiritualist
• 5:31
  movement, people wanted to have pictures with their deceased
• 5:35
  loved ones, so they absolutely, at least then, believed the
• 5:39
  people who bought the photos, not the people taking them,
• 5:41
  right? They absolutely believed that they were capturing the
• 5:46
  soul of their deceased loved one, which you know is a whole
• 5:51
  interesting psychological thing going on there.
• 5:53
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, and that's, I mean, and I mean,
• 5:56
  there's there's like, especially when you're dealing with the
• 5:58
  early technology of photography, there's so many ways to create
• 6:04
  fakes, and one of the most famous ones was a guy named
• 6:09
  William Mumbler, who would tell people like, "I don't know how
• 6:15
  these spirits are showing up in my photos because it wouldn't
• 6:18
  like people would be like, is that my dad? I don't know. It's
• 6:21
  a guy. It's a maybe it is. I don't know. He died when I was
• 6:24
  young, and I can't remember. But he he would just produce these
• 6:28
  photos, and people would be like, "Oh, I don't know how this
• 6:30
  is happening. Meanwhile, famous like con man P.T. Barnum was
• 6:35
  like, "No, this is obviously fake, and and and produced a
• 6:39
  photo of himself with like Lincoln's spirit behind him.
• 6:44
  Love that. So I mean, it's like, but there was like he got caught
• 6:47
  because he actually tried to pawn off a spirit, and it was
• 6:53
  the guy's wife, the guy who had come in earlier, like like a
• 6:57
  month beforehand to get her photo taken, and Mumler didn't
• 7:00
  know he was the husband, and he put this photo in there, and
• 7:05
  he's like, "That's my wife, and she isn't dead!"
• 7:09
  Dr. Emily Zarka: She's alive and well. She's alive.
• 7:11
  Casey Fatchett: So he tried to, you know, to skip town. He was
• 7:14
  in Boston, and he went to New York, but authorities caught
• 7:16
  him, and he went on trial. But the the the jury didn't convict
• 7:21
  him because they said
• 7:23
  Dr. Emily Zarka: interesting.
• 7:23
  Casey Fatchett: They said that despite like all of the the ways
• 7:27
  that people said that he could have faked this, no one saw him
• 7:30
  fake it. No one like no one caught him red handed, and there
• 7:33
  was an actual photographer who like sat in like thought he was
• 7:36
  faking it and like sat in the dark room with him and didn't
• 7:39
  said he didn't see him doing anything, but he didn't
• 7:42
  recognize the figure in in the that came up in the photo. But
• 7:46
  everybody was like, "Who's to know? This technology of
• 7:49
  photography may it may work. It may not. They didn't convince
• 7:52
  them beyond a reasonable doubt that that that he wasn't
• 7:57
  actually photographing spirits, despite people saying, "Well,
• 8:00
  that's my wife, and she's alive. He was like, "Oh no, that's an
• 8:02
  evil spirit that's trying to trick. It's different.
• 8:04
  Dr. Emily Zarka: It's her doppelganger from you know
• 8:05
  another lifetime or something. You could easily, I feel like,
• 8:08
  swindle your way through that. Yes,
• 8:10
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, he was like, I think he said to
• 8:11
  somebody else that like when he said that their cousin or
• 8:15
  brother, someone who died in the Civil War, he he produced a
• 8:19
  photo that was supposedly him, like in the photo, and he came
• 8:22
  back alive. And they're like, "He's not dead. He's like, "Oh,
• 8:25
  that was an evil spirit trying to trick you.
• 8:27
  Dr. Emily Zarka: But that goes back to, I think, again, this
• 8:29
  really because inherently, before I'm a monster expert, I'm
• 8:33
  a professor and a historian, so I'm fascinated by sort of the
• 8:36
  whys why things happen. And for me, I think the impetus for
• 8:40
  people wanting to believe, maybe even today, but at least with
• 8:43
  spirit photography, is there were all the wars that were
• 8:46
  happening, and you know people didn't see their loved ones ever
• 8:49
  again, and so I think it gave them this false sense of
• 8:52
  security. But the concept of the soul was also a hot topic in the
• 8:57
  19th century.
• 8:58
  Casey Fatchett: Spiritualism was Ouija boards, all that stuff
• 9:00
  like that-the whole history of spiritualism, rapping, yeah,
• 9:04
  Dr. Emily Zarka: 100% So I think that spirit photography was
• 9:07
  comforting because, in some ways, or at least people
• 9:10
  believed, answered that question because it proved yes, there's
• 9:13
  an afterlife. Yes, we do have a soul. Here's a picture of it,
• 9:16
  and I think people wanted that comfort.
• 9:19
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, people wanted to feel like they had
• 9:21
  some connection to the afterlife, some provable
• 9:25
  connection, like that. This was like a tactile, tangible, like
• 9:30
  way to bring, like pierce the veil and and capture a photo of
• 9:35
  it. And as a print, they could get it printed and take it home
• 9:37
  with them, as opposed to you know you go to a séance, and
• 9:41
  like there was no way to record a séance at that point, and no
• 9:45
  video. But moving from there, one of the things I really enjoy
• 9:50
  about your show is that is as you mentioned how you place
• 9:54
  monsters and their stories in the context of what that tells
• 9:58
  you about the people. Tell the monster story. So my question,
• 10:04
  and not just with ghosts, and and you can take this however
• 10:07
  you want, is what does our desire to document monsters or
• 10:14
  you know supernatural occurrences in photos or video,
• 10:18
  whatever, say about us? What does that monster story say
• 10:22
  about us as human beings?
• 10:24
  Dr. Emily Zarka: I think the desire to have physical proof of
• 10:27
  monsters is we want monsters to be real. I think a lot of us
• 10:31
  want to believe that the world is larger than it appears, and I
• 10:36
  think that we forget sometimes with science and obviously
• 10:39
  technology. I think we have so many answers to so many
• 10:42
  different things now that were completely unobtainable
• 10:44
  hundreds, obviously 1000s of years ago. So I think that
• 10:48
  having the possibility that monsters could be out there we
• 10:50
  don't know is really intriguing. And then of course, if evidence
• 10:55
  were to be captured, that would open up a whole new world of
• 10:58
  possibility. And cynically, it would also open up a whole new
• 11:01
  business world, so I think that's also part of the draw
• 11:04
  too, as being not only the first to quote unquote discover
• 11:08
  evidence, but the first to capitalize on the evidence as
• 11:12
  well. Yeah,
• 11:12
  Casey Fatchett: it's always about making money as well, but
• 11:14
  that's why they have like you know, I mean those sideshow wolf
• 11:19
  boys and things like that. People trying to capitalize on
• 11:23
  you know things that are actually scientifically
• 11:27
  explainable now, but people doing that. Yeah, I think that
• 11:30
  it's yeah. I completely agree. It's 100% wanting the mystery,
• 11:36
  like that. There's something that's out there that's
• 11:39
  unexplained, and we want to know that it's there, but we can't
• 11:43
  explain it. So it's just yeah, it's just like.
• 11:45
  Dr. Emily Zarka: And I think we've been doing that for so
• 11:47
  long. I mean, before photography, before videography.
• 11:50
  I mean, there's a lot of folklore about monsters across
• 11:53
  the world that I think are inherently based in real things
• 11:56
  that happened. Right. So you know, there's of course the most
• 12:00
  famous one, probably werewolves. That there were, you know,
• 12:02
  serial killers that were out there before we would identify
• 12:05
  them as mass murderers, and I think being able to say like,
• 12:08
  "Oh, well, you don't have a soul, or you're a werewolf,
• 12:11
  you're a vampire, you're a
• 12:12
  Casey Fatchett: monster,
• 12:13
  Dr. Emily Zarka: exactly. It stopped people from wondering if
• 12:17
  we could also be monsters, if they could be monsters
• 12:19
  themselves, and I think it's scary idea that humans can do
• 12:23
  such terrible things to each other. So I think that's one of
• 12:26
  the reasons we have monsters in the first place.
• 12:28
  Casey Fatchett: Well, yeah, and it's like I mean, even Mary
• 12:32
  Shelley, being close to Lord Byron and an actual murderer,
• 12:39
  probably in you know, just like some seeing someone you know,
• 12:44
  knowing someone who's you know probably a sociopath, and you
• 12:49
  know you want to like create some sort of narrative,
• 12:54
  Dr. Emily Zarka: exactly, and that's what Shelly did, right? I
• 12:56
  mean, her entire life was plagued by death. I mean, her
• 12:58
  mother died giving birth to her. Her own, she lost almost all of
• 13:02
  her own children, and then the love of her life. And
• 13:05
  Frankenstein was written before some of those deaths happened,
• 13:07
  but death was part of her world. And I think that that's very
• 13:10
  clearly expressed in Frankenstein.
• 13:12
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, and it's when you look at all of the
• 13:14
  different, like we were talking about vampires, but I mean, like
• 13:16
  there's so many different types of vampires around the world.
• 13:20
  Like Greek vampires, are different than precolicas, yeah,
• 13:24
  different than Asian vampires, and there's just like different
• 13:27
  things that surround them. And I think that you know, we're in
• 13:31
  the United States. I have a lot of listeners in Ireland, so
• 13:33
  don't get upset with me, Bram Stoker fans over in Ireland.
• 13:37
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Yeah,
• 13:38
  Casey Fatchett: but like you know, I think that that we tend
• 13:40
  to think of vampires and like that, East, Western, Western,
• 13:46
  not Eastern, in that sort of Western sense of, you know, like
• 13:50
  they're the Dracula style vampires, and it's just you know
• 13:54
  like understanding our stories, like in who we are as people. So
• 13:58
  I have a few questions. Don't even
• 14:00
  Dr. Emily Zarka: get me started about vampire history because I
• 14:02
  could rant and rave about that for days. I have
• 14:04
  Casey Fatchett: got books. We can come back and we can talk
• 14:06
  more vampires. Yeah, one of those things that yeah, my wife
• 14:10
  was like, "Do you really need all these books about vampires
• 14:13
  and vampire history? Yes, like yes, I do
• 14:16
  Dr. Emily Zarka: always,
• 14:16
  Casey Fatchett: always. That's why I kept them in a small New
• 14:18
  York apartment for years. So I've got a few questions for
• 14:21
  you. So, what is your favorite monster as a monster?
• 14:25
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Well, probably not surprising. Anything undead,
• 14:29
  particularly zombies and vampires. I just those were sort
• 14:32
  of my first monsters that really introduced me to horror as a
• 14:36
  child, and then what started my academic research in monsters.
• 14:40
  So I love the undead. I hold them very near and dear.
• 14:45
  Casey Fatchett: Don't hold a zombie too close. It might just
• 14:46
  like deteriorate in your hands. Okay. So favorite monster movie
• 14:52
  then?
• 14:52
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Oh gosh, that's a hard one.
• 14:54
  Casey Fatchett: It's hard to pick. It's really.
• 14:56
  Dr. Emily Zarka: It is hard. Off the top of my head, the first
• 14:59
  one that's coming to mind is. The mist.
• 15:00
  Casey Fatchett: Oh yeah,
• 15:02
  Dr. Emily Zarka: yeah, that one. The
• 15:03
  Casey Fatchett: original.
• 15:05
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Both of them. I actually liked the remake
• 15:07
  better, to be honest.
• 15:08
  Casey Fatchett: Okay.
• 15:09
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Yeah, because I think I mean the ending is
• 15:12
  bleaker than the original Stephen King story, but I really
• 15:14
  like the mist.
• 15:15
  Casey Fatchett: Oh yeah, I mean like the the at the end. That's
• 15:17
  sort of the that is so Horrifying at the end.
• 15:23
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Terrifying. Yeah, the
• 15:24
  Casey Fatchett: Thomas Jane version. I'm assuming as we yeah
• 15:26
  yeah. That's yeah. I can't.
• 15:32
  Dr. Emily Zarka: So I would say the mist, but then anything with
• 15:34
  Mothra in it because Mothra is my queen and I love her.
• 15:38
  Casey Fatchett: I loved those movies when I was like when I
• 15:40
  was a kid, like seeing any like all Island of Monsters, yeah,
• 15:47
  Godzilla and the Baby Godzilla. Yep, I would have to say my
• 15:51
  favorite scary movie. It's really tough because I I grew up
• 15:55
  probably watching movie like Nightmare on Up Street and
• 16:00
  Friday the 13th and Halloween way too young because my sister
• 16:04
  Dr. Emily Zarka: same
• 16:05
  Casey Fatchett: considerably older than me like yeah she's
• 16:08
  eight years older than I am and she was you know and loved those
• 16:10
  movies was watching them and I'm like like not even 10 in
• 16:14
  watching these films probably not a good time but The Exorcist
• 16:17
  is probably yeah it still scares me
• 16:20
  Dr. Emily Zarka: I've taught The Exorcist in class, and I
• 16:23
  definitely traumatized a couple of my students, but worth it.
• 16:27
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, my wife hates that I do the voice, like.
• 16:30
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Oh, you do.
• 16:31
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I won't do it. Just it freaks her out
• 16:35
  because I would one time when we were first started dating. I did
• 16:38
  it when she was like falling asleep, and she's like, "No, oh
• 16:41
  my gosh, yeah, never
• 16:42
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Never again. Grounds for divorce.
• 16:44
  Casey Fatchett: You're lucky you didn't get murdered. Exactly.
• 16:48
  Okay, so you deal with a lot of different like monsters that
• 16:54
  people probably have never heard of. Like, yeah, like, what's
• 17:00
  your favorite non-traditional mon? Oh,
• 17:04
  Dr. Emily Zarka: no question. It's the Mononangal from
• 17:07
  Filipino folklore, the segmenting, you know, flying,
• 17:11
  blood-sucking monster. I just love. She's just so bizarre and
• 17:16
  always female, so I inherently find that very fascinating and
• 17:20
  definitely the monolog. Yeah,
• 17:21
  Casey Fatchett: I'd say the name alone is just the
• 17:24
  Dr. Emily Zarka: yes.
• 17:25
  Casey Fatchett: Awesome. Hey hey, and now for my favorite
• 17:33
  part of the show, what's that say? Useless information. All
• 17:40
  right, so we're going to wrap up, and I always wrap up every
• 17:43
  episode with a little bit of useless information. Love
• 17:48
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Love it,
• 17:48
  Casey Fatchett: yeah. Just because I'm I'm an encyclopedia
• 17:51
  of useless knowledge, so kind of keeping with our topic. This is
• 17:57
  about bats. Bats, You know, see the world through echolocation,
• 18:05
  and but how did we find out that bats use echolocation in 1793?
• 18:13
  Lazzaro Spallanzani, I'm trying to create an experiment. Have
• 18:18
  you have you heard of this?
• 18:20
  Dr. Emily Zarka: I know exactly. No, but I know who he is. Yeah,
• 18:23
  Casey Fatchett: he noticed that when he blew a candle out, the
• 18:26
  bats flew around the room without bumping into anything.
• 18:30
  So he was like, "Huh, I wonder how they are doing that. So a
• 18:33
  few days later, he took two bats and he blindfolded them.
• 18:38
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Oh, this must have been challenging. Yeah,
• 18:41
  Casey Fatchett: apparently he made like little opaque discs
• 18:44
  out of lime, and just put them over their eyes. So he
• 18:47
  blindfolds them and lets the bats go, and he realizes like
• 18:51
  they they're doing just fine. They're not bumping, still not
• 18:55
  bumping into anything. So they must not use their eyes to
• 18:58
  navigate. So what did he do next? He made earplugs.
• 19:04
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Oh my gosh!
• 19:06
  Casey Fatchett: He plugged the bat's ears, and they were
• 19:09
  slamming into stuff, bumping into things. So obviously, they
• 19:14
  used sound to navigate.
• 19:18
  Dr. Emily Zarka: There you go, science made.
• 19:20
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, Doctor Sarka, thank you so much for
• 19:23
  being on the podcast. I really appreciate you coming on. Maybe
• 19:26
  we'll find something in the future. You can come on again.
• 19:29
  Can you tell? Let people know where they can find your show.
• 19:33
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Sure, you can find Monstrom on YouTube, on the
• 19:36
  Storyed channel, and also on PBS.org.
• 19:39
  Casey Fatchett: Thank you so much. It was really a pleasure.
• 19:43
  Dr. Emily Zarka: Thank you so much for having me.
• 20:08
  Casey Fatchett: Photographers want a better way to grow your
• 20:10
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  can build. Unlike social media, you have a direct connection to
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