Odd shadow

[pokingjoker]

So a friend brought this to me. Her sister w as taking a selfie and kind of was unsure what she captured on camera. She swears it's real. I'll be honest I have no idea what to make of the shadow behind her. You can clearly see where it blocks out the calendar, And what appears to be a shadow cast on the calendar as well. I'd like everyone's thoughts. My friend says the object near lamp looks like a hand to her as well but I'm just kinda of baffled.

[the13bats]

i like how the girl is to the side to show some black whatever partly over the calendar, it almost says "hey, look over my shoulder" what the devil is it? i dont have a clue, since you posted it in ghosts and hauntings i will assume your direction but i see zero that jumps to spirits to me,

ill send up the bat light for the photo expert charles to get his expert opinion on it as i take another gander....

[Piney]

@ChrLzs  

30 minutes ago, the13bats said:

ill send up the bat light for the photo expert charles to get his expert opinion on it as i take another gander....

[pokingjoker]

I wasn't sure where to put the post, ghost seemed like as good a choice as any. As for her tilt, kids and selfie I got no clue. I'm not a look at me take a selfie guy. I'm not saying it's anything except odd. I see something in the background no clue what it is. If it's a filter of some type, an app, a kite blown I'm the window. No clue. And that's the point of me posting is to get advice from people who do know a bit more about photo and imagery. So please any and all advice, points, theories welcome. 

[Piney]

2 minutes ago, pokingjoker said:

I wasn't sure where to put the post, ghost seemed like as good a choice as any. As for her tilt, kids and selfie I got no clue. I'm not a look at me take a selfie guy. I'm not saying it's anything except odd. I see something in the background no clue what it is. If it's a filter of some type, an app, a kite blown I'm the window. No clue. And that's the point of me posting is to get advice from people who do know a bit more about photo and imagery. So please any and all advice, points, theories welcome. 

I just tagged the inhouse photo guy. 

[pokingjoker]

Yeah I saw that, I was at a friend's place when I posted this, couldn't recall his name, it's been a while since I've been on the forums thanks

[pokingjoker]

When I got to work today my friend showed me the pic, as it's her sister, now I didn't go into her story but they believe they have a haunting, I didn't post any of that story cause it's just a story as far as I'm concerned. Mediums at the house yadda yadda. Common ghost story stuff, thus my lean towards ghost haunting board. Doesn't really matter far as I'm concerned. It's just the image itself I'm interested in hearing people break down

[Timothy]

@pokingjoker, hope your friends sister doesn’t mind you posting her face on public forums?

Any chance of a photo of the room from the same place without her in it? That would help to work out what it is.

[pokingjoker]

I'll ask about a shot of the room, or other pics , most woman take more than one selfie. If I get one I'll throw it up some point this weekend

Edited April 20, 2019 by pokingjoker

[the13bats]

36 minutes ago, pokingjoker said:

When I got to work today my friend showed me the pic, as it's her sister, now I didn't go into her story but they believe they have a haunting, I didn't post any of that story cause it's just a story as far as I'm concerned. Mediums at the house yadda yadda. Common ghost story stuff, thus my lean towards ghost haunting board. Doesn't really matter far as I'm concerned. It's just the image itself I'm interested in hearing people break down

sorry the moment you said "they believe they have a haunting" then no doubt to them its smoking gun proof of spooks, and my point the pic looks a bit stagged to show that area  now really screams that to me,

thanks for sparring us the ghost stories.

[moonman]

Interesting, definitely need some other shots of the room.

[papageorge1]

1 hour ago, pokingjoker said:

When I got to work today my friend showed me the pic, as it's her sister, now I didn't go into her story but they believe they have a haunting, I didn't post any of that story cause it's just a story as far as I'm concerned. Mediums at the house yadda yadda. Common ghost story stuff, thus my lean towards ghost haunting board. Doesn't really matter far as I'm concerned. It's just the image itself I'm interested in hearing people break down

My thought as a believer in hauntings is that this alone is a 'who knows' but if it has occurred in conjunction with other suspicious things  then it needs to be taken seriously.

Edited April 20, 2019 by papageorge1

[ChrLzs]

Huh, wha?  {.. opens eyes after hearing message notification on phone...}  Geez, I hope I'm on holiday rates...  Thanks for the heads up - this is a rather odd picture.

Annoyingly, I have a few requests, OP - I'll list them down below in rough order of importance down towards the bottom of this post.  I apologise in advance and will understand if the person doesn't want to play, given my well-known skeptical bias...

A few preliminary comments, and then my requests...

Where's the original???  It's a picture of 480 x 480 pixels, and it has no embedded data ('EXIF').  I don't know any camera that does that small an image, nor one that crops it square.  It seems certain this is not the original, but that cropping ..? - that's not good for any expectation of analysis...

At first glance it does look a bit like someone's hand / arm being waved around - it's probably a slow (~1/4 to 1 second) exposure which means backgrounds are often motion blurred.  But, there's a problem with the lighting direction for that 'shadow' - is there a bright light source off to the right, out of view?  It seems totally wrong for the orangy-yellowish light.  I'd really like to know more about all of the light sources involved..

I don't see any obvious signs of image tampering, so I think it's likely legit - if the editor was clever enough to not leave obvious signs, then one might expect something more dramatically ghostly..!

... ok, that said, here are my requests.

1. Please ask for the original - post it at an image sharing website (or I can give you an email address).  It needs to be unedited, including exif data.

2. As mentioned above, it would also help greatly to have a shot of the room from the same location (if possible using a wider angle camera, or by stepping back a bit or taking more than one image, to get more of the scenery (esp left and right) around what we are seeing here).  Make sure the same lights are on or off.  Are those hanging lights quite low, by any chance?

3. And yes, the shots taken immediately before and after, if they were taken in the same room, would be good...  

 

PS, if your friend really really wants this to be something special/paranormal... well, this probably isn't the 'best' forum for that!  But if they want real answers, though, you are at the right place.

Added PPS - she's very photogenic, by the way - nice pic 

Edited April 20, 2019 by ChrLzs
added pps

[ChrLzs]

2 hours ago, the13bats said:

... the pic looks a bit staged to show that area  now really screams that to me

As I sorta hinted above, I think it may have been cropped to only show the areas of interest...  We should give them the benefit of the doubt, as some folks don't realise how important it is to get an untouched original with as wide a view as possible. 

Edited April 20, 2019 by ChrLzs

[pokingjoker]

I will see what I can do, I had planned to see what other pics I could get from friend, as for the odd lighting I thought the same thing, thus my whole huh this is odd pic. Bringing it here was intentionally to science the crap outta it. 

[ChrLzs]

The Op was kind enough to send me some additional shots, but I'm really busy with life at the moment.... I will be back, but while you're waiting:

- there is other lighting in the room that might tie the shadow to the 'hand'/whatever it is that seems to be visible

- there were others in the house

- but.. I doubt if I will be able to come to a conclusion, other than it was something short-lived as the other shot taken at the same time shows no shadow or 'hand'..

Anyways, kudos to the OP and the image taker - it's rare we get extra information on these.  So thanks!

[pokingjoker]

Hey my pleasure, I'm just as curious. To me there are just some odd qualities. And we wanted others input. 

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

• @pokingjoker - wouldn't have a clue what's going on there but I like it!    The "shadow" figure (if that is what it is) is casting a shadow onto the calendar, or seems to be.
•  hope you get some good pointers 

[horrorgirl81]

Looks like some sort of shadow being, I've had a few encounters myself and this photo is somewhat similar to what I have seen before.

[Susanc241]

Even with my iPads very limited image editing I was able to get this version.  Not sure it adds much but is the solid black 'body' part, part of the shadow or something known in the room.  The 'hand' over the calendar seems to be much more smoke like.

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Susanc241
Posted by mistake before finishing typing

[moonman]

Looks like someone dressed in black with long flowing black hair running past, or flipping their hair.

Anybody in the house that day with long dark hair?

Edited May 9, 2019 by moonman

[ChrLzs]

Sorry bout the delay.  I'll be back over the weekend to post my thoughts and some processed (and as yet unseen) images that the OP was kind enough to send me.

[ChrLzs]

Another apology - sorry folks, but my one copy of those images was on a USB stick ... which I accidentally threw into a box of about 15... and I've had so much on my plate I haven't gone thru the process of refinding it.  Maybe this next weekend..?

[moonman]

13 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

Another apology - sorry folks, but my one copy of those images was on a USB stick ... which I accidentally threw into a box of about 15... and I've had so much on my plate I haven't gone thru the process of refinding it.  Maybe this next weekend..?

Were there any pics of the other people in the house at the time?

[ChrLzs]

7 hours ago, moonman said:

Were there any pics of the other people in the house at the time?

Yes, there were.  To respect their privacy I'll only be posting cropped/adjusted versions of the photo already posted and one other that is very similar, but won't post the one they sent me showing others.  But yes, there were at least a few other people in an adjacent room.  IIRC (I'll recheck this when I refind the USB..) none had obviously dark clothing.  I'll be commenting on that when I finally get back to offer a short summary of what I found.

To summarise that summary , there just isn't enough information to be sure what it was.  It does look strange, and my best guess is a person or persons in shadow and/or wearing dark clothes and with dark hair, but I'll be perfectly honest - I find it very hard to identify the shapes.

So.. Unexplained. Yay!

 

Kudos to the photographer and the OP for the way they were extremely forthcoming with information and photos, all of which were good quality - what a change from the norm that was!!!

Edited May 23, 2019 by ChrLzs