Photography like everything else in this world can be a bit tricky, to say the least. Just when you think you have the perfect photo, something goes awry and leaves you befuddled. The thing in the picture looks nothing like the thing you saw. Maybe it is not the camera lens that is off, perhaps it is that image that is perceived between the eye and brain.
Late this afternoon, the curtain in the living room was pulled aside a bit allowing the setting sun to shoot a beam of light into the house. The walls in this room are painted a dark, burnt umber (almost black) so the beam was amazingly bright! It almost looked like a portion of the wall was on fire. Not one to miss an opportunity to play with the old camera, I started snapping photos. It was not long before the sun set behind the pines and my fiery light was gone. But I had photos!!
When the pictures were checked, that beam of light looked more like some material item hung on the wall instead of a ray of light. There was no translucent quality, no background texture...nothing. I might as well have hung a white pillow case up there and took photos! The image did not even have the brightness that I had hoped to capture. Something went terribly amiss!
I now possess a crazy photo that will have to have an invented tale to go along with it. Perhaps, due to the time of year, this could be a photograph of a visiting ghost! Yes, lets blame the poor quality on the fact that this was an apparition floating about the Little Bayou House! Sounds good to me!
It never fails that folks who claim to have captured a ghost, Big Foot, Loch Ness Monster or Elvis on film always present a very blurry photo. In the picture, the "proof" is obscure, to say the least. Most of the time, it is downright difficult to even distinguish anything in the photograph. Hey! I am good at that type photography! A lot of my photos are blurry, distorted and hard to decipher. I figure that I should be famous by now!
Actually, there are things on the Bayou that are unexplainable. Sights and sounds during the wee hours of the morning can send chills up the spine. Couple these with a good old fashioned tale and things can get pretty eerie! Now, I am not saying there are things out there but I am sure not saying that there aren't. Lets just leave it at that.
There are tales that at some point in history this very area was a not so savory place to be. The Bayou was known to be home of a good many large alligators that left little evidence if a "body" needed to disappear without a trace. Folklore says that the bayous are all haunted because of such transgressions. Personally, I have yet to come across any evidence that proves or disproves the accounts but one never knows. Then...back to the photography skills...a photo taken this morning may be "proof"! A "ghost" appeared in my photograph! I was taking pictures of the sunlight playing on a rising mist covering the marsh and somehow captured my apparition! The ghost is in one photo and not the next! Where did it go???
To be honest, the wispiness of the low lying fog can appear to be many things. This is what brings tales of Will-o-the-wisps, swamp ghosts and water spirits. The early morning mist carried by a soft breeze can conjure all sorts of mystical thoughts. (We won't mention that a cloud blocked the sun's rays at an opportune time making the marsh a lot darker!) My "Ghost of the Bayou" needs a believable tale to go with it. Perhaps, this shall become the basis for yet another Clue Hunt on the Bayou! Then again....maybe it really was a ghost!
