What is with this picture?

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 11:24 pm

I first mentioned this picture in the staff poll thread under Fall River and It's Environs. I have recently moved and had not yet unpacked the box that contained my photo albums.I unpacked them this evening and found my photo. In that thread some interesting photos of some orbs were posted. I especially thought the ones taken in the guest room of the B&B were interesting because this is where I stayed during both of my visits.Sort of spooky for me to see that.This picture was taken from the back deck of my grandmother's home. I was trying to take a picture of the first real snow of the season.It was not a misty day.It was a bright day and the sun was out, or else I would not have thought twice about the "mist".It was also in the middle of the afternoon. Though the picture looks dark as if it were taken in the evening. Any ideas on what might have caused this imagine? Or produced it? I hesitate to say it was anything ghostly.But it does give me the creeps. None of the other pictures on the roll showed any anomalies.It was just this one picture.

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 11:32 pm

Or does anyone know of some place I might submit the original photograph?

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:05 am

Geeez!
Is that a regular camera and are you outside when you took the picture? Which direction are you facing?

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 12:39 pm

It's a regular 35mm camera. I was standing outside on the deck facing the back yard trying to take a picture of the snow because I thought it looked beautiful.Everything was covered and glistening in the sun.I guess it appears I am looking through glass,but I was not. Someone I showed it to before commented that it might have been a reflection off of the window. I said there was no window.It was an open deck, as you can see from the snow along the railing.

Audrey · Post by **Audrey** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 1:04 pm

We might be able to tell more.. and see more of the overall impression of the photo with an uncropped version. Or maybe this isn't cropped??

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 1:11 pm

No this isn't cropped. I had the camera turned.

Mark A. · Post by **Mark A.** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 6:09 pm

It looks to me that the white fog/mist is powdered snow blowing from the roof of the deck over the photographer and the reason that the background is so dark is that the camera took a light reading from the obvious bright snow in the foreground and underexposed to compensate for the bright foreground reading.
Shooting pictures in snow is a lot harder then most people think.

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 8:14 pm

Mark A. @ Sun Dec 19, 2004 7:09 pm wrote:It looks to me that the white fog/mist is powdered snow blowing from the roof of the deck over the photographer

I dont understand what you mean.If it was powdered snow blowing would it have had to be visible to me at the time I took the picture?

FairhavenGuy · Post by **FairhavenGuy** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 8:18 pm

The flash on the "mist" is certainly what is causing the rest of the photo to be underexposed.

My first impression of the mist was either the photographer's breath or cigarette smoke, but as Mark A. suggests it could also be fine snow blowing.

Allen · Post by **Allen** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 10:40 pm

Couldn't be cigarrette smoke I'm not a smoker. I think it is too large an area to be my breath,unless I'm a pretty heavy breather

, but I can see where it might have been snow blowing.But my question is still would the snow blowing around have had to be visible to me when I took the picture? Or are you saying it was too fine to be seen with the naked eye?

FairhavenGuy · Post by **FairhavenGuy** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 11:13 pm

Most people find photos of orbs and other things to be odd because they do not see what caused the images to appear. That's why they sometimes seek supernatural explanations for these phenomena.

Flashes on cameras certainly pick up things we don't see. Most "orbs" are specks of dust or tiny water droplets that are just only an inch or two in front of the lens of the camera. They photographer never sees them and doesn't see that 125th of a second when they're reflecting that light flash onto the film.

Newer point-and-shoot 35mm cameras and digital cameras have their flashes a lot closer to the lens of the camera that older cameras did. It is this close proximity of flash and lens that has made the recording of "orbs" a relatively recent occurance in the history of photography.

As far as the snow goes, you may, in fact, have been somewhat vaguely aware that there was snow blowing around. It was, afterall, a cold winter day and you were taking pictures of the snow. But it was nothing particularly unusual given the circumstances and you might not have been aware of it enough to actually "see" it, if it was visible at all to the naked eye.

Same thing with your breath. It would only take a wisp of breath, illuminated by that brilliant flash of light, to produce that image. It only looks large because it's close to the lens. (Notice how it is in front of everything else in the photo, because it is closer than anything else.)

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 1:23 am

I was wondering about the conditions and which compass direction you were facing. Was there a breeze?

I wonder if our member called "icghosts" might have an opinion?

Can I PM you Melissa?
(I don't know anything about suspicious photographs but I love 'em!)