On Wednesday, October 28, at 1 p.m. ET, just in time for Halloween, join us for a conversation on ghost photography with Tricycle’s newest editor, Ho Family Foundation Buddhism Public Scholar Nataly Shahaf. Drawing on her forthcoming book Multiple Exposures: Ghost Photography, Buddhism, and Visual Heritage in Early Twentieth-Century China, Shahaf will discuss her research, answer questions, and show visual examples that may leave you shuddering—or, at the very least, considering the use of photography for more than just preservation and reproduction.

Ghost photography proliferated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in Buddhist conversations in China, it was often understood as a moral or devotional exercise. During a time of widespread scientific rationalism and anti-superstition campaigns, these practices took shape and gained a foothold, redefining the potential of the medium. Shahaf studies the historical practices as well as the modern-day versions and implications.

“Rather than treating ghost photographs as evidence of supernatural phenomena, I analyze them as expressions of a Buddhist phenomenology in which seeing is understood as an ethically conditioned act,” Shahaf says. “These images rendered visible the otherwise unseen workings of karma, memory, and consciousness, challenging modern assumptions about photographic objectivity and truth.”

This event is free with an option to make a donation.