Creepy ‘100 Year Old’ Halloween Photography
These really creepy photographs are from artist/musician Ossian Brown‘s book Haunted Air and really provide quite an extraordinary glimpse into the traditions of our macabre Halloween festival from ages past. Some of these photographs are over 100 years old, dating back between 1875 and 1955.
I don’t know if you’re like me, but I get quite a weird feeling looking at these, it must be the fact that you can’t see most of their eyes, just those black soulless voids… Spooky
The History of Halloween
The roots of Halloween lie in the ancient pre–Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, a feast to mark the death of the old year and the birth of the new. It was believed that on this night the veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin and ruptured, allowing spirits to pass through and walk unseen but not unheard amongst men. The advent of Christianity saw the pagan festival subsumed in All Souls’ Day, when across Europe the dead were mourned and venerated. Children and the poor, often masked or in outlandish costume, wandered the night begging “soul cakes” in exchange for prayers, and fires burned to keep malevolent phantoms at bay. From Europe, the haunted tradition would quickly take root and flourish in the fertile soil of the New World. Feeding hungrily on fresh lore, consuming half–remembered tales of its own shadowy origins and rituals, Halloween was reborn in America. The pumpkin supplanted the carved turnip; costumes grew ever stranger, and celebrants both rural and urban seized gleefully on the festival’s intoxicating, lawless spirit. For one wild night, the dead stared into the faces of the living, and the living, ghoulishly masked and clad in tattered backwoods baroque, stared back.
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Wow. Great photographs. Definitely creepy.
They look scarier 100 years ago than they do today 🙂
very creepy, but brought back memories of when we used to make our masks! Papier mache was a lot of fun. Now everything is store bought. Too bad.
I’m with you Anita, the good old hand-made methods are the best 🙂
Incredible photographs, Carl. Are those your own or can you share the title of the book they may come from? I also agree with Anita, shame that everything now has to be store bought – papier mache indeed was a lot of fun. Ciao, Carina
I agree Carina, the old ways are the best 🙂
There taken from a book called Haunted Air from Amazon
Uh, I especially wouldn’t want to meet the person in the first one – neither in light nor dark….
I’m sure I’ve seen them in a horror movie 😉
I enjoy old photographs like not much else. The first one must be pretty well near the beginning of what I’d call popular photography i.e. second part of 19th cent. Nice.
I’m with you Joseph, I have such an affection for that old medium, none of this 100 shots to get the right one like now, you had to have the craft and skill to get it right first time.
Uah, that really IS creepy! Great!
Totally agree
Love this post. Home made masks and outfits are so much creepier than shop bought. Check out my old fashioned Halloween blog :-)….ah nostalgia
Homemade is my motto as well 🙂
Trully spooky!!!!
I thought so as well, it’s the black eyes that creep me out
Brilliant research.
Cheers 🙂
Old photos fascinates and these are AWESOMELY CREEPY 🙂
I totally agree, I don’t even have to look at them, there impregnated on my brain …spooky stuff 😦
Really creepy! (just the thought that the photos are real and not from the movies gave me goosebumps)
It’s the soulless black eyes that creep me out 😦
It’s very interesting how these people managed to scare the hell out of us without any elaborate costumes that sold today..And yea, those black holes for eyes are the main scare-factor 🙂
Great picture ! Thanks for sharing the history of halloween 🙂
Thanks, I totally agree 🙂
Extraordinarily creepy-great post! I think the masks remind me of the KKK which makes them even creepier. The stuff of nightmares for sure.
Spooky!!.. I got that initial impression as well