Haunted Houses

Informationen zum Autor Corinne May Botz is a photographer and chronicler of everyday spaces with secret, invisible histories. Her work has been exhibited internationally in one-person and group shows, and she teaches photography in New York. She is the author of The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Klappentext "When I was between the ages of five and eight, my sister and I slept in a large attic bedroom. At nightfall the room was filled with gypsies who glided around in clusters. They wore colorful thin flowing dresses and rummaged greedily through my drawers and books as if they would steal everything. I lay in bed as stiff as a board, trying to will myself invisible, praying they would not notice me looking . . . Daylight obliterated the gypsies, rendering them as thoroughly insubstantial as they had been real in the dark. I had a vague understanding that my vision was private, so I never told my family what I saw." So began Corinne May Botz's fascination with the invisible, a phenomenon that has profoundly influenced her approach to photography in style and subject matter. For more than ten years, she searched for ghost stories in buildings across the United States. She ventured into these haunted places with both camera and tape recorder in hand; her photographs, accompanied by first-person narratives, reveal a rare glimpse into American interiors, both physical and psychological. This book includes more than eighty haunted buildings, from the legendary to the ordinary, including Edgar Allan Poe's house in Baltimore, a New Jersey tavern, and a Massachusetts farmhouse, a log cabin in Kentucky, and a number of private residences. The text includes ghost stories told to the author by those who lived through the moving rugs, creaking floors, apparitions, disappearing-and reappearing-objects, cries in the night, mysteriously burning candles, and other unexplained occurrences. From: Introduction The House Remembers Women, ghosts, and houses One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place. —Emily Dickinson When I was between the ages of five and eight, my sister and I slept in a large attic bedroom. At nightfall the room was filled with gypsies, who glided around in clusters. They wore colorful, thin flowing dresses and rummaged greedily through my drawers and books as if they were seeking to reclaim their possessions. I lay in bed as stiff as a board, trying to will myself invisible, praying they would not notice me looking. Terrified and mesmerized, my eyes were fixed on these cold strangers, studying every detail and silent movement. My sister was only inches away from me in bed, but I was too afraid to turn my head and get her attention. Daylight obliterated the gypsies, rendering them as thoroughly insubstantial as they had been real in the dark. I had a vague understanding that my vision was private, so I never told my family what I saw. When I was nine, my family converted the attic into proper bedrooms, and I stopped seeing ghosts. But this experience has always influenced my belief that the numinous is a part of daily life and that it is possible to see what is usually considered invisible. A long time ago, I enlisted the camera to explore invisible territories. Some might argue that the camera is not the most appropriate tool for this endeavor, and yet it is the medium through which I can connect with and make sense of this elusive world. I have faith in the camera’s ability to teach us about reality and a sense of wonder at photography’s capacity to transform the ordinary and reflect the mystery and strangeness beneath the surface. Through the medium of the visible, photography makes the invisible apparent. By collecting extensive evidence of the surface, one becomes aware of what is missing, and a space is provided for the viewer to i...

Product details

• Authors: Corinne May Botz
• Publisher: Monacelli Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.09.2010
• EAN: 9781580932912
• ISBN: 978-1-58093-291-2
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 263 mm x 210 mm x 21 mm
• Subjects: Guides > Spirituality > Miscellaneous; Humanities, art, music > Art