For a new promo effort, Meltin’Pot, a jeans brand that’s hugely popular overseas, commissioned Brinson+Banks to photograph, well, pretty much whatever they wanted. “We received a box full of clothes with the creative direction of, ‘Go have fun and create something that is true to your style,’” explains Kendrick Brinson. “Complete creative freedom is a luxury and a rarity, so we had a blast with this.”
Kendrick and her husband and photographic partner, David Walter Banks, booked a couple of models and went out to the desert near Joshua Tree. “We love huge shoots, and we love tiny shoots,” notes Kendrick. “The big shoots are great because having a team of creative humans (from hair and makeup to prop stylists to multiple assistants to set designers, etc.) makes the shoot better—more ideas, more energy. However, we both have a background in newspapers and are always excited to wing it and get down and dirty on our own for a shoot, too.”
The models, Essa and Ben, are a couple in real life, so Brinson+Banks capitalized on their natural chemistry and basically just had a lot of fun while taking great photos. “We literally just ran around on ginormous boulders, laughed a lot, and jumped a lot,” says Kendrick.
Though the wardrobe was provided by the client, she and David did choose to add a select piece to the mix. In some of the nighttime shots, Essa sports a bear hat that Kendrick won at a White Elephant Christmas party she and David hosted, where people bring the worst gifts they received and everyone trades them. “Everyone wanted the bear hat,” she recalls. “Glad it got to have its day at this shoot.”
Photo by Brinson+Banks for Meltin’Pot.
Photo by Brinson+Banks for Meltin’Pot.
Photo by Brinson+Banks for Meltin’Pot.
Photo by Brinson+Banks for Meltin’Pot.
Photo by Brinson+Banks for Meltin’Pot.
Essa in Kendrick’s bear hat. Photo by Brinson+Banks for Meltin’Pot.
After the shoot wrapped, Brinson+Banks took the models out for dinner—and shot some photos of the models by car-light. “I noticed the red brake lights lighting them up, and the dirt on the windshield looked a little magical,” says Kendrick, “so I asked them to pose for just a few more shots.”
