The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is the most famous ghost photograph ever taken

Country Life magazine
Raynham Hall

On September 19, 1936 Captain Hubert C. Provand, a London-based photographer working for Country Life magazine, and his assistant, Indre Shira, were taking photographs of Raynham Hall for an article. They claim that they had already taken a photograph of the Hall's main staircase and were setting up to take a second when Shira saw "a vapoury form gradually assuming the appearance of a woman" moving down the stairs towards them.[5] Under Shira's direction Provand quickly took the cap off the lens while Shira pressed the trigger to activate the camera's flash. Later, when the negative was developed, the famous image of the "Brown Lady" was revealed. The account of Provand and Shira's ghostly experience at Raynham Hall was published in Country Life magazine on December 26, 1936 along with the photograph of the Brown Lady.[2][5] The photograph and the account of its taking also appeared in the January 4, 1937 edition of Life magazine.[6]

Shortly thereafter, the noted paranormal investigator Harry Price interviewed Provand and Shira and reported, "I will say at once I was impressed. I was told a perfectly simple story: Mr. Indre Shira saw the apparition descending the stairs at the precise moment when Captain Provand’s head was under the black cloth. A shout – and the cap was off and the flashbulb fired, with the results which we now see. I could not shake their story, and I had no right to disbelieve them. Only collusion between the two men would account for the ghost if it is a fake. The negative is entirely innocent of any faking."[6]