RED OR DEADLY
Irish locks are mane attraction in project as ‘extinction’ feared
AN Irish-italian looks wryly sideways through a poster emblazoned with the boundless conversation topics provoked by her mane of red hair.
“Do you have a fiery temper? Freckle Face! Are you Irish? Do you have a soul?” And the list goes on.
It is one of over 500 portraits of natural-born redheads taken by a photographer after he read that the hair colour was on its way to extinction.
The passion project created by Keith Barraclough and his wife Kate Lorenz has resulted in portraits of people of all ages and sizes with hair shades from strawberry blonde to coppery cinnamon to the brightest red.
The Redhead Project has revealed the people behind the hair colour with their quirks tumbling into the frames in a riot of colour and personality.
One subject, Laura, said she wouldn’t change her natural auburn locks for anything.
She added: “I’m half Irish and half Italian. The feistiest of combos
I hear. The comments range from ‘are you the milkman’s daughter’ to ‘carrot top’ and even ‘I have a thing for redheads’.
“These are a few of the repeatable ones. Wouldn’t trade a second of it – being a redhead is a unique experience and shapes who I am.”
In a recent shoot Bronwyn, an American dancer with Scots-irish ancestry, strikes a pose on a windswept grassy ledge overlooking her under-construction house in Cork. While redheads
make up less than two per cent of the world’s population, the figure is around 10% of the Irish population.
Keith said: “When you think of redheads you automatically think of Ireland because that’s where the red hair originated.”
The seed for the series was sown when he photographed a redheaded man for a corporate shoot back in 2013. It struck him he looked like he had just stepped off a boat from Ireland onto Ellis Island.
Keith added: “Everybody was taken by
[the photograph]. And I had just read an article from National Geographic about how redheads were going to go extinct in 100 years or 200 years because of the recessive gene.”
Keith said it began “strictly by word of mouth” but with social media “it really took off in terms of exposure”.
Kate, who helps to set up the shoots, notes a difference in attitude to the hair colour among the different generations.
She revealed: “We’ve photographed 508 redheads in person so far and I would say that the younger generation seems to be more confident.”
Although it’s a series about redheads, the couple believe the biggest draw is the way the portraits take the attention away from the subjects’ hair.
They added: “I can hear them talk because the elevator hasn’t gone down yet, and you hear them say ‘that was a lot of fun’.
“We give them the opportunity to show who they are, outside of their hair.”
The Redhead Project can be seen at keithbarraclough.com.