- The Photographer: The Russian scientist-chemist, the doctor of medicine Joseph Hamel, speaking at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, reported on the unusual properties of silver halide when deposited on the photographic plate. According to the scientist, the negative was capable of not only capturing the light reflected on it, but also to save something more: energy, which people called the soul. The academic community raised Hamel to laugh, but soon there was a ritual: the dead were photographed with eyes painted over the eyelids. It was believed that this way you could deceive death.