The camera never lies, and it also adds twenty pounds. Often the camera acts as a glass eye peering into it's subject's soul. A photography can inadvertently capture the smallest detail that is hidden in plain sight. Spirits, colors, people, life moments that leave one breathless can often be immortalized from the lens, and all without anyone knowing. Later the photographer sees what they innocently stole out of thin air and it can leave them.... shooketh.
Redditor u/FandomFun wanted all the photographers out there to shed some light on what the camera sees by asking.... Photographers of Reddit, what's the scariest thing that you have (accidentally or not) caught on camera?
She's Here!
Giphy
I took a picture of a mirror in my grandmother's house in dim light. Behind me in the mirror was a creepy pale FACE. I posted it to my live journal (yes, this was a long time ago) for help debunking it because I was terrified! After some daylight pictures of the room and a lot of discussion, we figured out the face was a bunch of flowers in the dark. I've never been so relieved in my life.
Seek help Jay....
This reminds me of something my Ex did to me (we are still friends, so no hard feelings over this at all). I used to buy those little disposable cameras and my ex and I would use them amongst each other. One time I went and got the film developed to find that my Ex had taken about ten photos of his poop in the toilet (it was huge, so I guess he was proud?) and a blurry picture of his family jewels. Thanks Jay. Persian_Housewife
The Foot!
The foot of a guy who was hiding in my apartment. He was on a big shelf that's tucked away in a small storage room in my apartment. Short story: took a pic of a friend at my place. Next day when I came home from work, the place was cleaned out with no sign of forced entry. It was a mystery.
Weeks later, I looked at the pic and saw the random foot behind my friend in my little storage room. The room was dark at the time, but I took the pic with flash so it immediately jumped out at me. He must have spent the night there, waited for me to leave and finally struck. Neither me or my friend noticed anything as we hung out that evening, nor did I notice anything during the night as I slept. 69fatboy420
Lucky Shot!
A water moccasin striking towards my brother's hand
I was on an observation deck that was surrounded by water that my brother and I had waded out to. As we were leaving, there was a big cottonmouth that had decided to check us out. I was taking pictures with my DSLR while my brother tried to prod it with a stick in an attempt to get it to leave. I got an incredibly lucky shot of the split second it lunged out of the water at my brother, fangs out and all. It was so quick that I flinched after I hit the shutter and couldn't believe I had gotten the pic. The feeling of being trapped out there still haunts me. gamblindan
They Never Left!
My parents traveled with me and my siblings to South America for a family reunion. All my sisters siblings (four in total) sat adjacent on a couch to pose for the photo. I was very young, about 10 or 11. My grandpas camera still had film in it, and I was asked if I could please walk to the corner store with my grandma and develop the photos. Well, they sat and smiled and we took some nice ones.
Then I got to see them.
Most of them came out pretty normal, some blurry because of my lack of skill as a kid, but one stood out to me even as a child. All of their faces were perfectly in focus, but around them there were these... light orbs. All the light sources in the room were not of the same shade and later on after I studied photography (secretly to try and debunk this) I learned the way light plays with a sensor and how that transmits to a developed image. Still, refraction was not the answer. What is even stranger is that the light orbs were three in number- the same amount of aunts my mom had before they all passed away.
They all surrounded her, almost as if to say "we are still here." Now I'm agnostic. But this is one of those things I can't explain. stringwizrd
On the Hunt!
Background: I took this back in 2013 (making me 12/13 at the time) and I come from a mundane rust belt sort of city with not much to do. Luckily for me there is a pretty nifty old cemetery in town so I visited it multiple times over the course of a few years, last time was in 2017 maybe? It's just something cool to do when I'm bored. On past experiences, I'd heard footsteps, weird voices and seen shadows darting around but this is the only instance I've actually captured anything. It was a nice stormy night which was perfect for "ghost hunting" at a spooky cemetery. There was a light rain and no fog. I'd learned from watching ghost TV shows and experienced people on /r/paranormal that when taking pictures to take multiple ones in quick succession, that way, if anything appears in one photo and doesn't in the next, it's more unexplainable.
I took three photos in quick succession of one eerie looking grave and got this. It only appeared in the middle photo, the other photos were on my old phone and I don't have them but I uploaded this online before since it had something in it. It was a cool night but warm enough to where my breath wasn't visible, so I'm pretty positive that wasn't it and usually when my breath appears in photos it's more cloudy and blotchy, this looks like some streaking mist. Is it a ghost? I'm not really sure tbh but I know it's definitely weird.
Note: due to people vandalizing tombstones and breaking in through the front gates in more recent years, I don't really want to reveal the name or location of the cemetery if that's okay :) Graveyard ghost photo: https://imgur.com/a/OveP1Sl _coyotes_
ROAR!!!
A few years back I did a session with a family at a local, semi-secluded waterfall. Everything went great: kids behaved, dog looked at the camera, and the light was perfect. Once I loaded the photos into Lightroom to start making adjustments, I noticed one of the pine trees had a tan spot--not unusual given a problem with pine beetles in the area. But, when I zoomed in it turned out to be a mountain lion.
Looked pretty young, but I still clenched my cheeks a wee bit. I showed the family proofs and they were delighted to put it up on their wall as a way to entertain visitors. While it was highly unlikely that it would have attacked anybody, it's still rather unsettling finding an additional prop in your photo.
In the Eyes....
Giphy
I once got way too close to 200lbs of sleepy seal. At one point he sat up looked me dead in the eyes and then rolled over, I wasn't sure if I should have kept shooting or climb the nearest tree.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholas_m/25699181584/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholas_m/26277865976/ nik282000
The Sad History....
I lost some photos on an old hard drive, tried really hard to recover them but no luck.
Spent a couple weeks in Tasmania and visited Port Arthur. This was obviously after the massacre. Place had a real heavy feel about it. Just felt like a real crap place to be. Took about 20 photos and 3 of them had weird stuff in them. One was a photo of a plaque listing all the victims name's which had a clear as day face in the top corner. My family thought surely I had edited the photo but I was showing the original on the camera LCD. The other two photos of where the cafe was and a half torn old building both had faces, not as clear but obviously something.
Really really creepy, and even before seeing the photos, whilst appreciating the history and significance of the site, I couldn't wait to leave. Never felt like that before In my life. freshchad
Join us Dad....
When I was 16, there was a whole month when my Dad just wouldn't talk to me and I had no idea why. One day, four years later, we were looking at our wild pictures and came across one of myself and three friends passing a joint around in our basement. And on the stairwell, my Dad, just watching. I guess we were too blazed to realize what was going on, because my friend who took the picture swears he hadn't seen it before. Still gives me shivers. CheddaHed
Medic!!!
A young women just as she started to have a seizure. I was taking pictures for my school's various sports teams in third year university, this particular day I was photographing a charity dodgeball game. My job was just to make sure I had at least one good picture of each player on the teams so that we could put them up on facebook as promotional material later. I remember taking a picture of a young woman and then looking down at my camera screen to see how the shot had turned out. As soon as the picture came up on screen I heard a bunch of people yelling for time-out and I looked up to see her seizing on the floor.
When I would later go through the photos for editing I ran across that particular one and it made me uncomfortable. You could see in the photo that she had just barely started to lose her balance and her eyes had begun to roll back. I'm happy to say that she is totally fine, she said it wasn't the first time something like this had happened and she was more embarrassed than anything else, but it was still a scary moment. EchosOfTay
ACTION!
I was making a short film (sorry, not a photo) in college. The assignment wast to showcase the city where the college is located. I accidentally filmed a drug deal. I kept it in my short film and made the lightrail the savior, sweeping the person the camera follows away to safety. Got an A but my film was not allowed on the college website with the others lol. krown24
The Orbs...
Giphy
I was taking photos at an old house, and I captured ghost orbs. I took photos from different angles, different lighting, and they were still in the same position in the room. stealthyelfy
Seeing Fingers....
While visiting a friend in London, I saw this dumpy storefront. Sign reads: high tech security systems. I took a photo because, irony. Later I noticed fingers gripping bars in the front window. It appears someone is looking out the window. CREEPY. AF. Creepy London https://imgur.com/gallery/pNsMN77 DrAudiologist
The Starling Pose....
I was the zoo taking photos. Later on when I was going through them I noticed I caught this Starling mid-pose with the most demonic expression.
https://imgur.com/gallery/UnwCISc JCarnacki
Look at the bird's back. I see the shape of a woman looking upwards. Not scary, just cool. ---ThisGuy
You Decide....
I tried to take a photo of a football player in a white jersey, but something got in the way that I can't explain. I didn't find out until I got home and downloaded the photos. Scared the crap out of me as I cycled through them.
Here's the photo. You can see the football player in the background that I tried to take a photo of. Don't look at it at night if you're by yourself. VictoriousMonk
The Blankie....
Giphy
A bunch of my friends and I were staying at a mates place, and we recorded a short video because one of our friends was doing something stupid. When we watched the video back, we all saw a horror-movie-like face behind my friend. We were crapping ourselves. Turns out it was just a blanket that has some weird designs printed on it, and it was in the perfect position to make a scary face. Took us half an hour to figure out. bigmanspam3
baby you're a firework....
Was taking pictures of fireworks on Canada day at a friend's place. One photo showed a man with a red plaid flannel jacket staring at the fireworks. Nobody in the area was seen with that jacket and There wasn't anybody in front of the camera when it was taken. trapperelectrical01
The Source of Light....
About two years ago I went with my cousin to a hidden spot in the mountains, far away from any sort of civilization, to try and take a sick picture of the milk way. When we were done and about to come back, I started looking at all the photos I made that night and in one of them there was this creepy light that appeared to draw some random pattern (sorry, cant find the photo). Me and my cousin run away as fast as we could.
A few months later we try again but this time in a different and even more isolated spot. Same thing happens but this time the light appears to be even closer.
One year later I was working at a party when a friend of mine without me noticing set my camera shutter speed at 10 minutes (which basically means that the camera keeps capturing a photo photo for 10 minutes). Since I didn't want to wait I restarted my camera and when I turned it on there was a new photo with another creepy random light in it.
You can get a similar effect if you move a laser/torch in a long exposure photo like this one but I still have no idea what could be the source of the light. MajorTom99
