OK, so maybe I'm not quite as FREAKED OUT as I said I was.

I just wanted to see what sort of reaction I would get. As far as I know, only one person fell for my little fairy tale. While the photo of the "ghost tram" is a genuine, 35mm, single exposure image that has not been "photoshopped", the story of how I took it was entirely made up.

Well, not entirely; I was wandering around Victoria Square at 1:00am looking for things to photograph in black and white, but the tram was already at the station when I got there. I asked the tram driver when it would be leaving and he said "In about two minutes." I quickly set up my tripod, lined up the shot, focussed the lens and tried to guess what exposure time would give me a good result. I figured about 30 seconds would do it. All I wanted was to capture a clear photo of a stationary tram, using the ambient light.

Using my watch to time the exposure, I pressed the cable release to open the shutter and waited. After about 20 seconds the tram driver closed the doors and, about five seconds after that, the tram started to roll slowly out of the station (away from me). I thought my photo was probably ruined, but I also knew there was a chance that it would look good. I left the shutter open for about another 15 seconds just to see what would happen.

I was taking photography as a University elective at the time and I developed the photo in the University dark room. As soon as I had a developed print I brought it out of the darkroom to have a good look at it. Aldo, the lab technician, was there and when I showed it to him he said, "You've finally impressed me!". That made my whole week. This all happened in October 1994 and 'Ghost Tram' is still my favourite photograph.