I carried out a photoshoot plan and experiment to analyse the process of character interpretation through costume and editing. Similar to the carnival costumes I looked at and based on my first set of initial ideas drawings, I wanted to test how liberal I could be with my design ideas whilst staying true to the original character material in my research. I initially did a plan to work out a basic idea of clothing, poses and settings for a handful of my favourite Caribbean folklore creatures: The Soucouyant, La Diablesse, Mama Glo, Jumbie, Douen, Shango and the Baccoo. I knew I would not shoot every single one of my character ideas so I starred the ones that I considered most interesting to interpret: La Diablesse, Soucouyant and the Baccoo.
I then organised costume ideas. I wanted to use tropical colours typical of the Caribbean islands, such as Grenada and St. Lucia, where my grandparents are from. I directed a classmate who had agreed to take photos and help me choose the best lighting, poses and backgrounds, and who understood the context of the photoshoot and what I was trying to achieve.
I then took the raw shots and edited them on photoshop to place in a backdrop and artistic effects. My first two edits of 'La Diablesse' were somewhat realistic, yet there were ways that I could have improved them. For example, the edit of the figure standing in the bamboo forest felt too out of place, and the shadow cast on the ground was far too opaque to seem realistic. The close up edit of the figure in the forest was more convincing, but there was little to suggest that this woman in the forest had any sort of malevolent intent as the original Diablesse is described as having. I do however, feel as if the clothing was chosen well and suited the nature of original folktale as well as having my own twist. There was a feeling of faded old fashioned glamour and wealth, that is attributed with La Diablesse, and at the same time the colours of the clothing are complimentary with the forest backdrop that I used- The violet colours of the dress and scarf against the deep green of the leaves. This stark contrast creates an eerie sense, that the mysterious woman is completely out of place in the forest.
However, I decided to explore a different style of editing, moving away from realism and looking more at distortion and dystopia. I placed the figure of La Diablesse this time in a plain dark green background, and drew interlocking fading lines of what I represented as bamboo across her eyes and legs- resembling the 'faceless' and 'cow-legged' description from the original myth. For me, this invoked more feelings of malevolence compared to the last two edits, as dark areas of the edit created more of a dangerous and mysterious feel.
I continued to use this type of style with the Baccoo, creating a sense of motion and magic by duplicating and spreading translucent copies of the figure across the page. I drew in a mask that I had illustrated in my plan, inspired by the descriptions of the baccoo as a magical 'genie' type creature with large eyes and a large mouth, whilst at the same time showing reminiscence of the African tribal masks used in spiritual practises.
Finally, my personal favourite edit is that of the Soucouyant, which I represented as an almost demonic and terrifying creature with many eyes and made from fire. I used the idea of identity that I discovered in the interview with my grandmother. She stated that the "Soucouyant must be identified" as someone that you knew in town. From this, I wondered if the Soucouyant could possibly withhold people's identities, even in this monstrous form. I used fiery coloured scarves to wrap around my shoulders, and in photoshop I changed the background colour and eye colour, multiplied the eyes and softly blended the hair outwards, resembling fire. Overall I feel as if this image had the most powerful effect as there was the feeling of being in a spiritual experience or dream, like in LeRoy Clarke's paintings that I had previously researched.
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