Molly Swindall holds one of many of her collection of Taylor Swift blankets in her collection of memorabilia she keeps at her childhood home in Johns Creek, Georgia on Oct. 5, 2023.
(Kendrick Brinson/The Washington Post / Getty Images)
Pasha Whitmire, material developer, loads his surfboard onto the roof of his car for a lunchtime surf break with fellow employees from the Patagonia corporate headquarters in Ventura, California. (David Walter Banks/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
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Kendrick Brinson and David Walter Banks on Portraiture
Photographers and Directors, David Walter Banks and Kendrick Brinson met and fell in love with photography and storytelling at the same time and place in photojournalism class in college, eventually falling in love with each other two years later. They began their professional careers as community photojournalists in the South, then expanding to national magazines, and eventually joining forces to create moment and color-driven work as a team for some of the world's leading advertising agencies and editorial publications.
The interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.
David Walter Banks (DWB): We have different approaches, different tools but one thing we both firmly believe in is making people feel comfortable and good and feel like it's a collaboration between us. People have often said the same thing to us: ‘Wow, you made that so painless!’
Kendrick Brinson (KB): I always try to remember how vulnerable it is to be photographed. For me what makes a good experience is that the person feels like I respect them and that they have a say if they’re uncomfortable at any point, that they feel like they can let me know. I'm only here to represent you however you want to be represented.
DWB: For me there's always been this thing where I love documentary storytelling but I also love photography’s ability to show us something that's more or different than what we can see with our eyes. I’ve always loved the ability to capture light and create these surreal fantastical images. That's what first got me into lighting and studio lighting, why I was attracted to commercial photography. That said, I also have this deep seated photojournalism ethic that even my most surrealist, weirdest images — I always want to make it in camera. I love the camera's ability to tell the truth, love for there to be this duality of fantastical images still having truth at its core.
KB: I'd say the most important thing is light. You can have the most beautiful person, you can have a fun interaction with them but if you can't see light, then your photo just is not going to shine the way it could. It could be natural light, could be studio light, could be a mix. My comfort zone is natural light and I can walk into a house and see it and that dictates everything I do.
DWB: There are so many different realms within portrait photography, every different image and situation calls for different approaches. If I’m photographing a celebrity in a hotel room on a press junket and I know I'm only going to have seven minutes to photograph them, the most important thing for that situation for me is to have lighting all perfect and dialed in before they walk in the room and that I have backup options in case they decide they don't like that. With them it's also about trying to make an immediate connection and make someone feel good about you with no tie at all. If it’s a sensitive documentary situation at their home, I will at first not have my camera out. I’ll instead talk to them and walk around with them. My approach there might be looking for where the window light is coming in through the house where the trees are overhanging in the backyard and where I might be able to get the last rays of sunlight through the trees on their face. A great portrait is great light and a great moment at its core but there are so many different approaches to achieve it.
KB: For celebrity portraiture there's a small time frame, if you get 15 mins that's a lot and there’s a lot of pressure to get more than one look. And you know you're going to be in a room that looks like a bedroom. You know there will be window light coming in so you can already be thinking about two looks with natural light and a studio light. With so much of my editorial work, I don't have a plan. I know that I can bring a strobe and I can work really well with natural light. So I'm pretty confident walking into multiple situations … it’s not necessarily preparation, it's just that I've done it enough times so I can just do it. When we first started doing celebrity portraiture, we got there 2 hours before so we could set it all up.
DWB: I’m more the lighting one between us so my approach will more often be to have the big lighting kit, and many times I still leave the big kit in the car. Preparation is thinking about what your approach is, some photographers every single photo is shot on film in natural light and they know six different ways throughout the day that they like to use natural light. Sometimes I go on a portrait shoot and I have my 4x5 camera and one lens and nothing else. It's about deciding what tools you want to have at your disposal. So I know that whatever the situation is I can take control of it and make it look how I want. A big part of preparation is planning, so you have something in mind going in but are still completely ready to throw that plan out the window if something better arises.
KB: Being open to serendipity is what makes a lot of photos really great. You notice they have a disco ball that’s catching light on the bedside table and then you think let's try to catch you in the scattered light of the ball. In the back of my mind, I'm always looking around for ideas. Knowing tools like having someone with the sun behind them but also noticing things like the magical hot pink wall with light hitting it. I’m often trying to figure it out as I go, never telling them ‘it’s not working, it's not working’. Instead, you're just talking to them and trying different things until something does work. With portraiture, when I first started it was a nightmare scenario for me to have to tell someone what to do. I would rather be the fly on the wall. It took awhile for me to get more and more confident. I encourage people who are wanting to be portrait photographers, go take portraits of your mom, your friends.
DWB: One of the biggest gifts I've been given from portrait photography or things I've learned from it is an expanded capacity for empathy. For me that's come from meeting with, talking with and sharing space with so many different people form so many different walks of life from the poorest of the poorest to the riches of the rich, ex-felons, democrats republicans. People have become so divided and so many people spend their days in this echo chamber where they say the ideas that are shared back to them. That dwindles your capacity for empathy in others when you don't exchange ideas with them. Every single person I sit down with, instead of being like how am I different from this person, I immediately look for what similarities we share, what parts of our life we share. I look around their room and I think we can quickly find what that is. We‘re all just people trying to get by and survive. So, for me, I think portrait photography means I can put myself in other people's shoes in a way that I don't think I would have learned if I'd gone into a different profession.