Haunted Houses by Corinne May Botz

October 31, 2011 3:59 AM EDT

In her projects, Corinne May Botz reveals a dark obsession with domestic space and what lies behind closed doors. Often times the home is used as a stage to explore mysterious moments about life and fears of death. This is evidenced in her past series which include her book The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death (The Monacelli Press, 2004), where she photographed models of crime scenes based on actual homicides, suicides and accidental deaths created to train detectives to assess visual evidence. In the project Murder Objects, she photographed household items that were used as evidence in violent crimes, and in Parameters, she explores the homes where agoraphobics live. What eventually comes together in all of this work is an idea of how we use seeing to come to terms with something invisible like crimes we didn’t witness or fears that are unexplainable.

Her latest book Haunted Houses is no different and uses photography as a way of exploring an invisible history of the spaces we live in. Here, Botz tells TIME what inspired the project:

“The first thing that inspired the project were writers like Edith Wharton, Charlotte Bronte and even Toni Morrison. Often these ghost stories were written by women as a means of articulating domestic discontents. I was interested in the idea of a woman being trapped in the home or by domestic space and how this was expressed in history. That combined with the desire to travel led me to photographing the houses.

It has almost become a right of passage for photographer to go on a road trip like Robert Frank or Stephen Shore and traditionally it’s work about public spaces but this project is about private spaces. It’s amazing how many people let me into their homes.

A lot of time I would just show up and knock on the door. When I photographed in haunted houses, I tried to open myself to the invisible nuances of a space. I photographed using a large format camera, with exposures often ranging from a few seconds to a few hours. Though the medium of the visible, photography makes the invisible apparent. By collecting extensive evidence of the surface, one becomes aware of what is missing, and a space is provided for the viewer to imagine the invisible.

I worked on the project, on and off, for 10 years photographing over 100 houses and recording over 50 oral ghost histories. (You can listen to them here)

Unlike the majority of horror films where the ghosts arrive as a result of an inopportune death, or to right a wrong, the inhabitants of these houses are often at a loss for why the ghosts are there, and in some cases the ghost is considered a source of comfort.”

In terms of people…many of them like their ghosts and and the comfort of not being alone, they like these caretakers protecting the house and having these histories attached to their house. They like having their everyday life have some kind of surprise or mystery to it.”

Haunted Houses (The Monacelli Press) is available here. Corinne May Botz’s work is currently part of Crime Unseen at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, which is on display through Jan. 15.

**The Roehrs House, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.** A woman visiting her father who lived in this now demolished house said, "All of a sudden, I got a very uneasy feeling that I should go to my daughter who was two at the time and sleeping upstairs. I heard her calling, “Momma, momma, momma.” I ran up the stairs and leaned over to pick her up. A pounding started coming from a little closet next to the chimney that was so loud. Bam! Bam! Bam! It was loud enough that there was reverberation through the walls and floors. I just grabbed her and went running out of there. I had the most horrible feeling. I’m not trying to embellish it. We spent the rest of the night on the first floor on the couch. Ever since that time I was never comfortable on the third floor again and I never made her sleep there. There was something there that was not kind. It was almost demonic it was not a good energy at all." Corinne May Botz

**Abandoned House, Frankfort, Maine.** Cheryl who moved into the house with her family in the 1950's and lived there for 30 years said, "My sister and I always heard our names called . My father always said it was the wind, but the wind don’t say your name. I didn’t like going up on the third floor, that’s where I saw a man sittin’in an easy chair. Sometimes it sounded like people were walking around the house and running down the halls. When we first moved there the floor in the back room was all cluttered with love letters. Maybe that guy died there or somethin’. That place made me feel so weird."Corinne May Botz

**Old Bermuda Inn, Staten Island, New York.** Esther, a member of the restaurant staff said, "Martha and her husband lived in this mansion in 1863. Martha’s husband was off in the Civil War for two years, and he did not come back. He was missing in action and the body was never found. All of Martha’s letters and pictures came back. She was very upset, she had no friends or family. She committed suicide; they found her in her bedroom closet. Martha did die of a broken heart—very pretty girl, very sad story. Staff members have seen her floating around her house that we use as a restaurant now. We have an original mirror that dates back to 1863. One of our guests saw a vision of her through the mirror. She was smiling down at this particular guest, and they were really touched by it. Sometimes Martha gets mad. Staff members say that she burned a painting of herself that hangs in the restaurant area. There’s a big burn going right through it."Corinne May Botz

**Living Room, New York.** Corinne May Botz

**Seance Table, New York.** Corinne May Botz

**Private Residence, Harlan, Kentucky.** According to a woman who lives in the house, "You can be in the basement and hear somebody come in upstairs and walk through the house. You go upstairs and no ones there. You can feel it. It’s not a good feeling."Corinne May Botz

**Edgar Allan Poe House, Baltimore, Maryland.** Corinne May Botz

**Abandoned House, Frankfort, Maine.** Cheryl who moved into the house with her family in the 1950's and lived there for 30 years said, "My mother died in the house the day we were moving out; I feel like apart of her is still there." It was always cold in the house so my mother was so happy we were moving to a warm place. The moving vans had just left, she was finally gettin’ out of the house and she never got out. As bad as I wanted to leave cause it’s creepy, I miss it. I’m not sure if it’s true but I heard that the man who bought it won’t stay there cause it’s haunted. The place has been empty for a long time."Corinne May Botz

**Log Cabin, Harlan, Kentucky.** Jayne lived in the house for over fifty-one years said,"I always had such a soft feelin’ for the house. It had good vibes, friendly vibes. I never saw any illusions but I heard the most beautiful music. I couldn’t identify it but it was classical music of some kind—prob’ly organ. I would hear it off and on, off and on, and I would just sit there and listen. I decided I’d better keep this to myself. After a time, I began to tell it to good friends. I’d say, “Okay, we’re goin’ to go in here and be real quiet.” Sure ’nough, I had some friends hear it. I felt like I was saved. I thought, “It’s not me!”Corinne May Botz

**Private Residence, Cumberland, Kentucky.** Mia, 6 years old resident of the house said, "one time I was playing with my convertible and the lights just popped on and it drove everywhere. Somehow the door opened and it went outside, and I had to chase it. I was playing upstairs in my room and it did the same thing."Corinne May Botz

**Notes, Private Residence No. 2, Skowhegan, Maine.** In the early 1990s the residents of this home started to keep notes about the ghost happenings.Corinne May Botz

**Private Residence, Hawthorne, New Jersey.** Corinne May Botz

**Private Residence, Clinton, Maine.** Frank, 81 year old resident said, "Somewhere around fifty years ago, I was lying on the divan in the living room and with the moonlight shining on the floor I saw the rug actually depress. It headed right across the room to where I was. I could see the rug move as if someone was walking on it."Corinne May Botz

**Army Barracks, Vancouver, Washington.** Corinne May Botz

**Farmhouse, Gerard, Pennsylvania.** Vee who has lived in the house for over forty five years said, "in the 1930s an elderly brother and sister were still living in the house when a horrible murder took place….In the middle of the night we were lying in bed, and all of a sudden this roar starts, and we were awoken...Then, I thought it must be a tornado. I grabbed the sheets because I expected my bed to start twisting. It went on and on and the noise just wouldn’t stop… And then, after what seemed like forever, it was over. We lay there for a minute just to see if we were still alive, and my husband’s voice really quietly said, “Is it Halloween yet?” Which made us laugh."Corinne May Botz

**Private Residence, Dobbs Ferry, New York.** Denise, lived in the house since she was a teenager and now lives their with her husband. She says, " Surprisingly, none of it ever felt uncomfortable or unsettling; it was more of a comfort. It was like caretakers in the house. It’s like when your husband’s away and the house suddenly seems a little creepy, well we never felt that here. We never felt like we were alone." Corinne May Botz

**Private Residence, Rhinebeck, New York.**Corinne May Botz

Haunted Histories by Corinne May Botz

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