The Appariton of a Man on a Horse



This photo was submitted to us by Julie Karr of Savannah, MO. According to her letter and a follow-up telephone call, this photograph was a brown tone print that was apparently taken after the period of 1918-1929 as the small tombstone on the left have these dates carved in for the husband and wife death dates. Julie found theis photograph after doing some genealogy research. Her grandfather and her were sorting old pictures stored in the attic when she came across a brown tone photo glued to a cardboard frame. She wondered why someone would go to the trouble of framing this picture. The print had been trimmed down to about 3x5. Julie doesn't know which of her family member was into photography back then since it was costly . She has other photos that are in the same brown tone style.

I scanned in the photo and corrected for density. I was amazed at the transparent figure on a transparent horse! The building you can see within the horse's body and rider is the old Antioch Christian Church which no longer exist today. Julie said that she found another photo of the Church and it is postioned approxiately where the one in this photograph is located. However, the tree on the left side of the building is still standing today. I thought at first that the tree was the horse's head, but now I suspect it is the tree. You can also see a tombstone within the body of the horse! Look at the horse, see the shadows cast by the animal!

This may be double exposed but we have no way of proving one way or another. If it was double exposed, why was it framed since it would be considered as faulty and normally rejected.

The cemetery is the Gravel Wall Cemetery which is not kept up and can only be reached when it is not raining due to the poor roads. The cemetery is located near Savannah, MO This is Julie's family cemetery where her family members are buried. She did not know the date the cemetery was began, but many of the tombstones date back to the early 1800's.

You can see some old fashion farm equipment on the right hand side and some fence posts stacked on the left side of the photo. This is truly a remarkable photograph!

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Copyrighted 1997 by Dave Oester