Lot Essay
Lartigue describes how he and his brother discovered how to create the phantom photographs: "Sometimes, when I am taking a photo, I can, if I hurry, go and stand in front of the camera after taking the cover off the lens and in that way make a photo of myself - I have to race back and put the cork back on. The idea is not bad, I think, but the result...I'm always half transparent, like a ghost....Like a ghost! Zissou said "All we have to do is dress like a ghost and we'll have a photo of a ghost, a real ghost..."" (See Lartigue, Diary of a Century).