Photographer John Milleker is setting up for a "spirit" photo shoot in Sky Meadows State Park in Delaplane, Virginia.But first, he tells visitors about William Mumler, who came up with the idea of spirit photography.And he had taken a self-portrait of himself and a spirit happened to appear on the plate with him.He thought his plate wasn't cleaned properly.But when he took it to his friends and family, they thought it very resembled a cousin of his who had died 12 years prior.Mumler drew well-to-do clients for his expensive portraits, convincing them that spirits could put themselves in photographs.They included Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated days after the end of the U.S. Civil War.More than 600,000 soldiers died in the conflict, and some people longed for proof that their loved ones were in the afterlife.Mumler claimed he could provide that proof in a photo, but also warned that the spirit might not appear or look like the person they knew.And then he would explain the physical form and the spiritual form doesn't always look exactly the same way.But in Milleker's photo, the "spirit" always appear.He uses a glass plate and a camera with a lens from the 1860s to mimic Mumler's photos.Milleker says there are several ways Mumler may have created his images including using a double exposure.Taking a photograph of someone, putting the lens cap back on, adding someone, and then taking the lens cap back off again.
