The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, published to accompany a 2005 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, is one of the most delightful photography books I've come across in a long while. It's the first comprehensive study of which I'm aware to devote itself to the use of photography as a tool in parapsychological research and to trace the uneasy relationship between photographic science and spiritualist belief.
The book is divided into three sections - Photographs of Spirits, Photographs of Fluids and Photographs of Mediums - and consists of a series of scholarly essays, each followed by reproductions that illustrate the content of the text. This system is not always strictly adhered to. The chapter on Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, is followed not only by the relevant photographs of the Cottingley fairies but also by the "skotographs" of Madge Donohoe who is nowhere mentioned in the essay.
The book's Foreword, written by Philippe de Montebello and Jean-Luc Monterosso, sets forth the academic rigor with which the subject is to be viewed:
"While the controversies over the existence of occult forces cannot be discounted, the approach of this exhibition is resolutely historical. The curators present the photographs on their own terms,without authoritative comment on their veracity."
While such objectivity is in many ways admirable, it sometimes leads to unintended hilarity as when curators discuss obviously faked photographs in the same pedantic manner that might be employed in evaluating genuine works of art. In such cases, a more skeptical tone would have served better. Then again, some of the photos belong to the Met Museum's Gilman collection and the contributors might very well have considered it indiscreet to have labeled them outright deceptions. What is remarkable is that spiritualist believers, when confronted by these same photographs, refused to believe the evidence of their eyes and insisted the phenomena recorded were real. Even when photographers such as Buguet admitted to trickery, his supporters refused to accept his word for it.
On a technical note, it's interesting that infrared photography is mentioned only in passing, and then solely as a means of taking pictures in total darkness. One would have thought that that film's ability to capture wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye would have made it a great resource for those attempting to capture the paranormal.
None of the photographers whose works are displayed in this volume were masters of their craft. Far from it. But while there's nothing shown here that remotely approaches the artistry of Man Ray, the entire book, when taken as a whole, can alternatively be viewed as an anthology of surrealist photography that rivals anything deliberately created by that movement in its self-conscious search for dreamlike imagery. As such, many of these photographs possess and unintended beauty. In the Fluids section, some of the representations are reminiscent of abstract art, a genre they prefigured by several decades. Others have the charm of antique postcards from a Victorian sanitarium. And in the end, this unintended artistry may represent the real value of the publication. Thomas Mann, as quoted on page 177, derisively described the photographs taken of the medium Eva C. as "grotesque, fantastic and silly." It is exactly that aspect which makes them worth viewing.
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