The personal project I did last year is a series about a woman breaking free from a demonic curse at the cost of transmitting it to her man to sacrifice their union. The cup held by the man on the right photo contains the spell a demon granted the woman. (I chose not to put the photo with the demon in this shortlist)
I chose the japanese folklore to represent this thematic that is dear to me because of the variety of their traditional masks that are easy to allegorize.
You have a global idea, I'm not going to explain every detail here but know that I shot these as I envisionned them. There was little to no improvisation.
We shot in different locations combining natural light and flash strobe light, adding gels most of the time.