Why did I take this shot? I mean, there were plenty of cells to shoot, and I did shoot some of them... but why this one?

Cue the theme from The X Files...

I was not doing a guided tour. I had no knowledge of the histories of individual cells unless there were signs up, which there weren't for cell 17.

It was only as I was adding descriptions to some of these shots more than thirteen (yes, 13!) years after the fact that I discovered The Horrible Truth. The truth that you will find out about if you do one of the Old Melbourne Gaol ghost tours. That cell 17, this cell, is reputed to be the most haunted place in the entire gaol.

One tour guide said in a 2023 magazine article:
"...he’s seen people running from the cell in tears, saying they’ve felt like someone was gripping their throat and unable to breathe. Others have reported feeling like they’re being petted, scratched, something tugging at their clothes or even that the floor is rocking back and forth."

I did not experience any of that, nor did I encounter a spectral apparition the way the 40D would in Hobart some 2 years later. (See my Port Arthur, Tasmania gallery.)

Why cell 17? You'd have to ask at a séance. It's the only cell that sits flush with the prison walls; maybe it's sucking down the ectoplasm that way. In any case, I feel very disillusioned that I missed out on getting even the vague appearance of a spectral phenomenon on the sensor.

(Although that said... normally I would have punched the shadows up a little in the doorway, where they seem to be abnormally dark with respect to the rest of the image. That's normally a trivial operation that takes a couple of clicks. However I can't get them to budge normally. Levels, Curves, Brightness / Contrast... nothing works without giving abnormal fringing and colour patterns. So either it's the ancientness of the 40D sensor combined with bad light, or... there is something eeeeeeevil there that refuses to be brought into the light. You decide! Or alternatively next time you're in Melbourne take the night time ghost tour of the gaol (which includes spending some time alone in cell 17) and let me know how it goes. I'll just wait over here until you get back.)