Lashelle Bynum arrived for her photo shoot with royal blue hair, a vintage Dorothy Dandridge shirt and shiny maroon loafers, but without her grin.

However, bring up her “babies,” — the images faintly clinging to the side of brick walls or hiding in the nook of a random alley — and the corners of her mouth almost touch her ears.

“I can have a hell of a day, and I can see a ghost sign and it can make me smile,” Bynum said before playfully sticking out her tongue at the thought.

Ghost signs are the faded, hand-painted signs of the past usually on the exterior wall of buildings. They were often advertisements for businesses and became popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before the widespread use of radio, TV and social media.

Some were thin and vertical, just big enough to fit a large Coca Cola bottle. Others were wide with bold lettering and an arrow directing viewers to the business.

For 20 years, Bynum has photographed Baltimore’s ghost signs and researched some of the businesses associated with them. That led unofficial go-to, ghost sign expert to photograph Baltimore’s architecture, department stores, and monuments.

When her job for the state sent her out on to the city’s streets, Bynum found it was only a matter of time before she’d lock eyes with a haunting ghost sign on the edge of extinction.

One of the first signs Bynum photographed was Lenny’s House of Naturals in Poppleton. The barbershop’s sign had two heads with small afros, a shampoo bottle and its business hours. It was one of the only signs connected to an African American business that she saw in the city, she said. Bynum was surprised to find out the barbershop welcomed the heads of Oprah and other prominent figures back in the day.

“After I photographed that one, they seemed to find me,” Bynum said of spotting more ghost signs.

Ghost signs can be found all over the country and all across Maryland. In downtown Hagerstown, for example, at the top of a four-story brick building, there’s one still up for Updegraff‘s Clothiers, Hatters and Furnishers, a long-shuttered family-owned business. Lashelle has turned her friends onto ghost signs and often gets photos sent to her when they go out of town.

After photographing the signs for a couple years, Bynum started to think more about the people who painted them. Did their fingers cramp? Were they cranky after work?

She learned these workers were often referred to as “walldogs” since they often needed to be suspended from the wall to do the painting. Before they started painting, though, they used a “pounce bag” filled with powder to outline the pattern or design. Lead was used in the paint back then and is one of the main reasons the signs have persevered through today.

She’s never met a walldog, but she’d really like to, maybe at one of their conventions.

“They’re still out there painting signs and that’s so damn cool,” Bynum said.

Though Bynum has dug deep into some of these ghost signs, she hesitates to making it “too nerdy.” Some people have asked about the font and lettering choices used for certain signs, but she’s not going down those rabbit holes.

“I want people to have fun with it and learn fun facts. If you want to go down that deep and tell me, then you come back and you tell me what you found cause I ain’t going that far,” Bynum said.

Bynum isn’t the only one showing love to Baltimore’s ghost signs. Last year, Sam Redles and Tyler Dix with Human Made Signs & Murals, repainted the “VOTE AGAINST PROHIBITION” sign in Fells Point after they were commissioned by Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point.

Redles studied curation at Maryland Institute College of Art, and assembled an exhibit in 2015 with the Baltimore Museum of Industry called “NOT YET LOST! The Art of Maryland Sign Painters.”

“I think doing the Vote Against Prohibition sign really reinvigorated that desire to want to really help to preserve some of these signs and keep them as a reminder of a different part of history,” Redles said.

Dix and Redles recently connected with Bynum through Baltimore Heritage, where Bynum is on the board, about refurbishing more ghost signs in Baltimore.

Bynum was worried at first. “What do they want to do to my babies?” she wondered.

But Redles was reassuring, saying that minus the lead paint, they’re going to use similar techniques used to create the signs originally to bring them back to life. They are also trying to think geographically about refurbishing some of the signs, keeping in mind how to draw out the history in different areas of Baltimore.

Nothing is set in stone, Dix said, as they continue to research and try to find the owners of certain buildings. If a ghost sign falls within a historic district in Baltimore, it’d likely need to get authorization and guidance on refurbishing from the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, said Eric Holcomb, the commission’s executive director.

Some of the signs they’re interested in include the Coca Cola sign on the side of Trinacria, an Italian market and deli on Paca Street.

“We obviously can’t save them all,” Dix said.

Slip into the alley alongside the deli and you’ll only find a chalky outline of a sign whose meaning is unknowable. But walk inside the deli and the photo behind the counter fills in the blanks.

It’s a black-and-white sign proclaiming “TRINACRIA MACARONI WORKS” over a small boy holding a glass bottle of Coca Cola, with its own slogan: “You trust its quality.”

Building owners and their tenants often develop their own appreciation for these pieces of fading history.

Across from the Arlington Avenue entrance of Hollins Market sits a large, white-lettered C.D. Kenny Company sign, shrouded by trees.

The building, which advertised the tea and coffee importer, is now an architecture and development company owned by Tamir and Kasey Ezzat.

Kasey said she researched the building’s history, adding that she now loves knowing it has “seen so many lives.” They have a century-old photo of the market that partially shows the sign in the back and neighbors gave them salt-and-pepper shakers from the C.D. Kenny Company.

They’ve considered getting the sign redone and the work is approved by city preservationists, Tamir said. But he said he doesn’t think it’s “worth destroying what’s underneath to recreate it.”

Bynum recently visited one of her “babies” on the side of a brick row house under construction near the Sharp-Leadenhall neighborhood. With her, she had a photo she took 15 years earlier.

As she peered over her red-rimmed glasses, she noticed another sign surfaced faintly over time and an arrow in her photo has since worn away.

She knows the odds are not in her favor. More often then not, ghost signs will be covered by other buildings, destroyed in demolitions or worn away by the passage of time.

“As the new Baltimore rises, those signs are fading,” she said.