What is a Photographer if Not a Paranormal Investigator? In Conversation with Patricia Voulgaris

The daughter of a paranormal investigator, photo-based artist and educator Patricia Voulgaris examines the tension between reality and fiction and its ability to reveal aspects of the physical world that our naked eyes cannot perceive.

Discussing her interest in the visual language of the supernatural, Voulgaris explores how art can be a space where science and belief intersect.

Shannon Taggart

Your father is a paranormal investigator. Is this how you first became interested in the paranormal? How has his ghost-hunting influenced your work?

Patricia Voulgaris

In high school, I was taking photography classes, and by 11th or 12th grade my dad had joined the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), where he began fielding calls from people who claimed to have extraterrestrial experiences.

When I went to college, he officially became part of a Long Island paranormal ghost-hunting group made up of local people searching for ghosts. I would go with him and photograph on these investigations, not so much to analyze the situations, but for the experience itself. I was excited to be doing something with my dad.

ST

What I enjoy about your photography is that you deal with the subject indirectly. You’re not documenting paranormal experience; you’re constructing it, or conjuring the atmosphere of such an encounter. How would you describe the visual world you’re building?

PV

A lot of times I feel caught between being a con artist and being a “real” artist. I’m always at this crossroads: Do I push something into the realm of the unbelievable, or am I actually searching for truth? My work is often about world-building and filtering information through myself and my experiences, layering it, and creating something that feels like a constructed reality. That’s very different from, say, straightforwardly documenting a place like Lily Dale.

I think photography does a really good job of being descriptive: you point the camera at something, and it often records exactly what’s there. But what interests me about going on these ghost-hunting adventures with my dad is that you’re in a highly descriptive place, like a cemetery, and yet the photographs don’t always hold onto that clarity.

When you come home and look at the images, something shifts. The description slips away, and your mind starts to play tricks. You have to separate yourself from the location and its history, but when you return to the images later, everything comes rushing back. You start asking: What is that in the photo? Could it be haunted? And suddenly you’re moving back and forth between belief and factual information. I don’t know of any other practice that requires you to inhabit both modes at once.

ST

Yes! As photographers, we are observing and creating at once. Images that confront the invisible seem to emphasize photography’s ability to reflect both subjective and objective worlds. Is this largely due to the embrace of camera glitches or artifacts of the process others might deem “mistakes”?

PV

My dad and I both approach the evidence we collect with skepticism. The photographic evidence, or the “mistakes,” we encounter often become a source of humor between us, but also a point of connection.

What interests me is how these moments bond us through photography, suggesting that even mistakes can guide us in a shared search for “truth.” We’re constantly reviewing evidence, questioning what we see, and challenging each other on what we consider to be true or truthful. In that way, the pursuit of truth becomes the thread that ties us together in ways I never expected. It’s a process that feels both spiritual and emotional, carrying a kind of weight that goes beyond the images themselves.

ST

Photography is often defined in positivist or modernist terms. I am interested in how some of the medium’s inherent spookiness gets ignored. For example, in his recent essay on the 1970s “thoughtographer” Ted Serios, historian and curator Clément Chéroux highlights an important shift in post–World War II photography: the rise of the photographer’s “subjectivity.”

This emphasis on personal vision was crucial in securing photography’s recognition as a legitimate fine art. Chéroux makes that point that “subjectivity” could also be described as the successful projection of a mental image. What do you think of this telepathic aspect of the medium, often referred to as “the photographer’s eye”?

PV

The photographer’s eye is the portal through which the camera records the photographer’s intention. It’s so much more than just capturing what the photographer sees: it’s about the photograph’s ability to transform the scene, whether through lived experience or through collaboration with others, allowing that transformation to become a magical or unique event.

This exposure is then presented to others, who may find it relatable or not. And I think that dialogue, the discussion that photography so brilliantly creates, is its real power. Everything can be placed under a lens, transformed, and suddenly seen in a new way.

ST

In one of our talks, I said that great photographers like Friedlander, Winogrand, and Arbus make reality feel “magical,” and you answered, “What is a photographer if not a paranormal investigator?” I loved that. Could you elaborate?

PV

As photographers, we are always searching for aspects of life that reflect something of ourselves, or for moments that reveal the world’s uniqueness. Photographs allude to both discovery and recognition; they allow us to see the world more clearly, even as we find ourselves within it. I like the idea that the photographer takes on the role of proving something to be true, while also revealing how truth itself can be debated. In this way, photographing feels closely aligned with paranormal investigating.

ST

The theme of superstition informs certain aspects of your work. What has been the response?

PV

At the beginning of grad school, I was experimenting with creating cursed imagery. I even attempted to curse myself during a critique. The responses have been a mixed bag. I often find that people reflect on their own perception of reality, on what feels safe in what they know, and on the discomfort of what they don’t. Many look for concrete evidence, while others are quick to dismiss. I’m okay with those responses. I’m never disappointed if someone doesn’t fully understand my work. It can be frustrating to be misunderstood, but I also see it as part of the dialogue the work creates.

ST

What is a favorite example of yours from the history of psychic photography? What do you find most appealing about this area of photographic inquiry?

PV

There’s that one well-known photograph of the medium Eva Carrière sitting in a chair, with a man looking to her left while what appears to be a glowing beam of light emerges from her hands. In images of her, humor and a fascination with death come together for me. It’s a space where science and belief intersect, and I love being in the middle of that complex inquiry.

ST

Many of your images are fabricated in collaboration with your partner. How does she feel about being the subject of spooky images?

PV

My partner, Amina, loves collaborating with me. Having experienced a lot of death in her life, she’s also deeply fascinated by it, so our connection feels effortless. She tends to believe in anything until proven otherwise, and I think participating in the photographs brings up exactly those questions we try to answer—questions that remain unresolved, yet keep us going.

ST

How has your perspective on the paranormal image evolved since your first ghost hunt with your dad?

PV

Growing up with someone so deeply interested in investigating the unknown shaped my own curiosity. That’s really how it started. But it wasn’t until grad school that I began reflecting more deeply on these experiences, especially as I processed my dad’s recent cancer diagnosis. All these threads have been coming together in ways that feel both close and urgent.

The paranormal has become personal for me, and I’ve been trying to understand my relationship to it. Every photograph feels like a ghost, a reminder of the past that makes me want to return in the middle of the night with my father, if only in spirit.

The ghosts, in their strange way, have always brought us closer. Our shared curiosity for the unknown, and the peculiar spaces between us, has always kept us connected. We are all investigators in our own way, chasing something that moves us, shapes us, and, sometimes, brings us back to each other.▪︎

This is the fourth in the series Photography and the Invisible that explores the connections between photography, spiritualism, art, and the unseen. Explore more here.