Two Durangoans publish book, photos
June 26, 2007
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Photos courtesy of Michael Richard
Review
They Call Me “The Ghost Guy” by Michael and Susan Richard, Lulu.com, 107 pages, 71 paranormal photographs, $17.95 paperback or download at LuLu.com
Durango’s ghost guy says he now makes a living from spooks. He sells his paranormal pictures to collectors and, with his wife, Susan, has self-published a short memoir They Call Me “The Ghost Guy.”
As for the division of labor, Mr. Richards is the paranormal photographer. Mrs. Richards takes backup rolls of photos to check results and has written most of the book.
The book contains 71 black-and-white photographs, most of which have white blurs in them. The Richards’ claim is that the blurs are pictures of spirits. Should we pay attention to their claim?
Who knows? One thing the Richards could have done to help their claim would have been to print the pictures on glossy paper so they would show up better. But this still begs the question of what the blurs are in the first place.
A whole posse of 958-pound gorillas lumbers around the book. First there are the basic questions of whether spirits exist and, if so, what they look like. Then there’s the question of Photoshop. Mr. Richard said by phone on Sunday that Mrs. Richard had colorized one photo so it would show up better, but no other picture had been altered.
As for technique “only two types of film, high speed and infrared, will give me the detail and dependability I demand,” they write. “You can, however, get interesting results with regular film. I have also found that manual cameras are best.” After a shoot, Mr. and Mrs. Richards send their film to separate labs.