Photographer Kieran Dodds has expanded his long-running project photographing people with red hair by traveling across the United States between 2024 and 2026. The effort builds upon a decade of international work that culminated in a small-edition art book titled Gingers in 2020 and features on the BBC.
Mapping Gingers Across America Through Portraits
By 2024, the focus shifted entirely to the United States. Dodds began his American travels in January 2024 by photographing Native American populations in Arkansas and Oklahoma. From there, the project expanded, eventually reaching redheaded individuals across 30 states. Willing participants register through the project website by clicking “Get Involved” for consideration, while those not selected for a portrait are added to Dodds’ anonymous Gingers of America
map, which shows U.S. redheaded people’s distribution.
Reclaiming the Term and Revealing Gene Diversity
Dodds, who identifies as a ginger, views the vernacular term as a powerful descriptor rather than an insult. Growing up, the word was often thrown at him as an insult, a usage that persists today. Yet he embraces its descriptive power.
“The term ‘ginger’ was thrown at me as an insult growing up (and even today it’s widely used in that sense), but it’s not really red, is it?”
Kieran Dodds, Photographer
His work captures a spectrum representing a range of color from deep golden brown to strawberry blond. Rather than focusing strictly on traditional Scotch-Irish heritage, Dodds loves seeing how the gene pops up across cultures. Interview subjects have included people with widely varying backgrounds and heritages, aiming to reveal the beauty of the people, written in their genes and drawn from a diverse human story.
Connecting Common Threads Across the United States
At the end of every portrait session and interview across the country, Dodds asks each interviewee the same question: What unites the states? The responses highlight shared cultural threads despite vast geographic and demographic differences. Although almost everyone featured in the project is ginger, it is not really about hair, but rather structured around themes raised time and again in conversations with portrait sitters and reflected upon during travels in the states.
“Although almost everyone featured in the project is ginger, it is not really about hair. It is structured around themes raised time and again in the conversations I had with portrait sitters, and which I reflected on during my travels in the states.”
Kieran Dodds, Photographer
Working within the United States appeals to him as a photographer because the nation is so vast, complex and diverse. Dodds seeks out people with interesting stories as photo subjects and spends time doing interviews during the shoots, noting that it is refreshing to focus on commonalities rather than division.
Expanding the Project to Oregon and Beyond
The American tour brought the Scottish photographer to town Nov. 29 to take portraits for his project Gingers of America, arriving in Portland just after Thanksgiving. Prior to his U.S. focus, Dodds began making portraits in Scotland in 2013 and expanded to Europe, Russia and even Jamaica.
By interviewing and making portraits of hundreds of people with ginger hair, with widely varying backgrounds and heritage, across the U.S. between 2024 and 2026, the ongoing project continues to trace how a single genetic trait weaves through the vast and varied demographic landscape of America.
