Final report
Prepared by Megan Bondy
Prepared by Megan Bondy
Brian is a recently engaged American photographer from Los Angles. .He has no children but says "I hopes to have a little one with bright red hair so they can be uniquely beautiful." Brian started this project which spanned 3 summers to show the real beauty of red hair and help break down stereotypes people often have about redheads. Brian studied economics at USC. He never studied or even took a class in photography. He said "looking back at it now i wish i would have taken more creative art class not even in photography but in something artistic." Born and raised as someone living in such a big city he has had a chance to see it all and people of every race, ethnic background religion, and even down to the hair color. He was able to take a human geography class which is this class you explore how humans have understood, used, and changed the surface of Earth. So he said this helped him understand where the red headed population originated from , helping him find out which locations he wanted to visit for his red head photo shoots.
His story started as a personal thing. As a young child his grandmother, who has red hair, was telling him stories of her childhood with growing up with red hair and how she was always bullied. He knew that he would never do the same to someone because of their hair color. It soon became a social point of posting pictures of girls with red hair writing captions about how beautiful and unique each girl is. In my opinion over time his pictures had more passion and scrolling through you could start to see more emotions coming out of his photography based off of the background and the stance he placed the girls in.
Brian's style is the specific color red. But even deeper than that he captures personality through all of his pictures. He is capturing each girls native styles and background. In the three pictures below you can almost make a guess on how each girls personalities are based on how the look. He is expressing the difference that all of these women share but how different they all are from each other still int their own beautiful way.
Being a partial red head it gives me some perspective on what he is trying to show through his photography . when i was emailing him questions i asked him what influenced him . Brian talked about how no red hair is the same. there will always be a new red color every time a red head is born. He points out how uniquely beautiful every red haired girl is and it shows me that even though the hair color may be different, different is beautiful.
His story started as a personal thing. As a young child his grandmother, who has red hair, was telling him stories of her childhood with growing up with red hair and how she was always bullied. He knew that he would never do the same to someone because of their hair color. It soon became a social point of posting pictures of girls with red hair writing captions about how beautiful and unique each girl is. In my opinion over time his pictures had more passion and scrolling through you could start to see more emotions coming out of his photography based off of the background and the stance he placed the girls in.
Brian's style is the specific color red. But even deeper than that he captures personality through all of his pictures. He is capturing each girls native styles and background. In the three pictures below you can almost make a guess on how each girls personalities are based on how the look. He is expressing the difference that all of these women share but how different they all are from each other still int their own beautiful way.
Being a partial red head it gives me some perspective on what he is trying to show through his photography . when i was emailing him questions i asked him what influenced him . Brian talked about how no red hair is the same. there will always be a new red color every time a red head is born. He points out how uniquely beautiful every red haired girl is and it shows me that even though the hair color may be different, different is beautiful.
Sources
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/985651062/redhead-beauty-a-portrait-photography-art-book
http://www.dowlingphotography.com/about/
https://www.demilked.com/redheads-portraits-brian-dowling/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/985651062/redhead-beauty-a-portrait-photography-art-book
http://www.dowlingphotography.com/about/
https://www.demilked.com/redheads-portraits-brian-dowling/
Brian's photos
Untitled
My photos
Glow Curls Pearls
My pictures were unique because its a very difficult location to find pure red heads that have close to the same color hair. So it was a lot of experimentation with different editing tools trying to get a red a little deeper.
Compare and contrast
One thing different is most of his picture have eyes that have been edited to make them look larger or brighter. Another is the background are very simple and blurred , hard to see, allowing you to see colors but hard to replicate what you cant see. There are many differences between the girls natural appearance . Like facial structure, smiles, and many others. but overall the pictures have the same general shape and layout.