Thursday, December 3, 2009

How to Dress for a Ghost Hunt

How to dress for a ghost hunt or a ghost investigation?
Comfort is the first word which comes to mind. Appropriately is the second word.
The former is a no brainer. If someone, man or woman, is wearing stiletto heels on a hunt, they're nuts, and they are endangering themselves and others. In you're under dressed in the cold, you will be less effective. The same goes for overdressed in the warm, but you always shed layers.
About those layers.
We did a hunt recently in which three of our investigators showed up in all black, or very dark colors. This is not such a problem on a daylight investigation, but in the pitch black? Not so much. First and foremost they endangered others and themselves, and secondly they ran the risk of contaminating evidence due to poor viewing or people placement.
At least one light, or white item should be worn by everybody. I've thought about purchasing photographer's vests in a light color and putting our secondary logo on the front, and for good measure, an individual reflective strip on the back of each vest, so we can recognize by the reflection who is who if all else fails. Plus they have a lot of cool pockets for gadgets. This I haven't done yet because of the cost, and because the next thing they'll be expecting is liquid nitrogen cooled flux capacitor ghost zappers or something.
Hats. This is an unpopular subject, but it's the way I feel. Leave them at home, unless you're baiting ghosts in period dress that requires them, or unless they are part of your personnel identification system. Baseball caps irk me a bit, not because they're hats, but because like most hats, they obstruct some of ones field of vision. Everything above the bill is blind to you. You could easily miss an important clue, or bonk your head on a low hanging object. I recently observed a ghost hunt where everybody was in super long billed caps with the sides way curled in so as to block not only the horizontal above the bill, but a good deal of their peripheral vision as well. If you have to wear a baseball cap, turn it backwards so as not to blind a portion of one of your most important senses: your eyes. Or forgo them all together and provide everyone with birthday party hats. Problem solved.
Dress appropriately.
Comfortable shoes. First rule.
Why do so many ghost investigators I see on TV and on YouTube dress like utter slobs? Black t-shirts with band logos and scenes on them. Shorts all the time (I wear shorts almost every day of the year, but not on investigations), looking scruffy. Doesn't this perpetuate the myth that most ghost hunters can't spell perpetuate, let alone define it? And isn't it somewhat insulting to the spirit world? Maybe they don't get offended. They're dead right? They're in no place to judge.
Bullsh. If you're working an investigation outdoors, in a field, jeans, t-shirts, OK. If you're investigating the Queen Mary, you should take it up a notch or three. A theater? Dress as you would on a date to the theater, as if you're making an effort to impress. If you're going to be on camera, almost dress as if you're interviewing for a job, because every person who sees you from then on, on YouTube or TV, you're doing just that. If you're investigating someones private residence, why not make an effort to NOT look like a felon, rather than the reverse.
Perfumes and colognes. These should be kept to a minimum if worn at all. A lot of times ghosts use smells as cues to their presence, but if anybody and everybody's smelling like they just came from the sample counter, you loose the sense of smell, which is important.
Effectiveness and respect. That's what it's about.

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