Spirit Photography Virtual Webinar

Dr. Brian Hubner

12:30 CT (10:30 PT / 1:30 ET )

In this webinar, Dr. Brian Hubner, NAAB Regional Director for the Prairies and Acquisition and Access Archivist with the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections (UMASC), will lead a discussion about the market and history of a unique type of archival material: Spirit Photography.

Spirit photography, also called ghost photography or séance photography, is a type of photographic work which aims to capture images of ghosts and other spiritual entities. In the July 2025 issue of Évaluation, the NAAB Newsletter, Dr. Hubner writes: “Spirit photographs are among the most interesting and valuable photographic items which are found at auction. There is no strict definition of what a spirit photograph is but generally it is an image which was taken roughly in the period 1860-1940, with the participation of a medium, which depict ghosts or spirits of loved ones crossing over from the spirit world. Not the same, but closely related are the photos of white, billowy, ectoplasms, also coming from spirit world which extrude form the mouth or nose of a medium.”

Drawing from the extensive Hamilton Family fonds held at UMASC, Dr. Hubner will share his vast knowledge on the market context of spirit photography and provide insights on the acquisition of the varied materials in the fonds.

This webinar is free for NAAB members. Non-members can register for $25.00 + tax.

Hamilton Family fonds - University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections

University of Manitoba Digital Collections: Hamilton Family fonds

Manitoba Archival Information Network: Hamilton Family fonds

Further reading

University of Manitoba exhibition: The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts

Brian Hubner is currently the Acquisition and Access Archivist with the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections (UMASC). He has a Bachelor of Arts in History (Honours), a Master of Arts (History) from the University of Saskatchewan, and a Master of Arts (History, in Archival Studies) from the University of Manitoba. He received a PhD in Archives from the U of Amsterdam in 2020. In 1994, he co-wrote The Cypress Hills: The Land and Its People, a book dealing mainly with the Indigenous people of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, with a revised 2nd edition issued in 2007. Brian has published articles on archival subjects including: "This is the Whiteman's Law": Aboriginal Resistance, Bureaucratic Change and the Census of Canada, 1830-2006" in Archival Science (2007), which focused on government records of Indigenous peoples, and has presented many conference papers. He has studied the history of the market for archival documents created, and associated, by Louis Riel. Brian currently appraises archival material and books for a variety of clients including the Canada Museum for Human Rights and the Societe historique de Saint-Boniface (SHSB), the University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections, and the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan. Brian also appraises many collections for the UMASC.