From the start, they looked like what they were: black-and-white photographs of actual people, places, and occurrences. But they weren’t of people I knew, or of places I’d been, or of things I’d seen. How could I have known they were real? I had no idea they were ghosts. There was nothing nightmarish about the first images.

In the passage of time, like recurring dreams, they became as familiar as old friends. Over the years, their predictability grew—like members of your family, they repeated themselves. These eight images were the first ghosts I saw, not knowing they were ghosts.

1. Five rough-looking men are standing or sitting in front of a crudely built shack, a log cabin with an open door. A stack of firewood is beside the cabin; a bucksaw is at rest in a sawhorse in front of the men. Each man is wearing a different kind of hat or cap. Some aspen trees, but more evergreens, are in the background.

2. A trail above timberline—it could be a mountain pass. A mule train is making its narrow way. You can’t see what’s in the wagons; the heavy-looking loads are covered with animal hides, maybe steerhides. God knows what’s being toted.

3. A group portrait—there must be two dozen men, in as many kinds of hats or caps. The men in the back row are standing; the ones in the front row kneel or sit on the ground. There are two children, both bareheaded, and a couple of dogs. On the hillside, which slopes uphill behind this group, is a workplace of shed-roofed buildings made of beams and mismatched stones. Maybe it’s a mine.

4. Two men, definitely miners, are working underground. One man holds a sledgehammer over his shoulder; the other man appears to be setting an explosive charge. Crowbars, of various sizes, are strewn at the men’s feet. Their boots—like their hats, with crumpled brims—are very dirty.

5. A formal portrait: a close-up of a well-dressed, bearded gentleman. I can’t make out what might be an old-fashioned stickpin, perhaps holding a necktie in place; his hair is slicked back and his beard has been purposely trimmed. He’s definitely not a miner. Maybe he’s the mine owner, or a banker—an entrepreneur of importance, I deduced from my first look at him.

6. I can’t see a name on the façade of the three-story brick building; I can’t tell if I’m looking at the front or the back of the building. A horse-drawn wagon, possibly a delivery wagon, stands beside the building, which I first pegged as late-Victorian architecture. Maybe mine camp architecture is more apt. It is a massive-looking brick rectangle, with both arched and rectangular windows—impressive, but not pretty.

7. A dark-skinned hotel maid, maybe Mexican, poses with her mop and pail in a hallway between rooms. She has a shy, childlike smile.