Thompson had the idea for the process when he was trying to photograph ghosts in Pluckley, Kent – known as the most haunted village in England – for his series The Village. According to local myth, Pluckley is home to a number of apparitions, with tales of a phantom horse and coach passing through the town, a general who roams the woods, a Gypsy woman who set herself ablaze, and various red and white ladies who appear in St Nicholas’s churchyard