Red Hot X by Thomas Knights
FEATURED: Red Hot X Project | Website
PHOTOGRAPHER: Thomas Knights | Instagram
WRITER: Matthew Philllp | Instagram
After a decade of Red Hot books, calendars and art exhibitions celebrating the beauty of the redhead, Thomas Knights is back with Red Hot X and, chock-a-block with full-frontal nudity, it’s even hotter than ever!
10 Years Of Red Hot X
Since 2013, Creative Director Thomas Knights has been capturing the sexiness of redheads on camera in his multi-media Red Hot project, all featuring a diverse cast of ginger-haired models in various states of undress. His efforts have raised money for The Elton John AIDS Foundation and anti-bullying charities while making the case that redheads are hot.
To commemorate the project’s tenth year, Thomas embarked on Red Hot’s most ambitious iteration yet: Red Hot X, a book of all ginger male nudes featuring full-frontal nudity, the first of its kind. He spoke with Matthew Phillp, redhead to redhead, about the four-act project and what’s behind the unusual, often extreme human response to people with ginger hair.
DNA: It’s shocking to me that this is the first time anyone’s ever published a photography book featuring all ginger male models with full-frontal nudity.
Thomas Knights: I know! We’d obviously done nude shoots before but never full frontal. It’s exciting to be the first.
It’s all about exhibitionism and voyeurism so we created a vibe for each act. Act one is the sun-soaked paradise of the Algarve [southern Portugal]. Act two was shot in Cambridge, UK, and for that, we did a military theme that was all about creating cyborgs. Act three is shot in Palm Springs and is set in the heart of the American desert under the relentless sunlight of an imagined retro-styled place called Gingerville. Act four is from the vault. We’ve done 10 years of Red Hot, five of which involve fully nude photos, so it’s the best nudes we’ve taken since we started.
Who in the cast has the most compelling story about how being a redhead has shaped them?
Nathaniel Rush, an actor, is amazing. His journey to acceptance of being a ginger black guy is very powerful. But the star was Brock Bowers. He’s just brilliant and he’s got a story. He was bullied at school, he was very overweight, but he went through a whole transformation and he was the first one to get naked.
Did anything scandalous happen when you were done shooting for the day? It seems like these were quite playful sets.
When we booked flights for some of the guys we didn’t book them a bag because they were only going to be out here for a couple of days and we knew it would be hot and that they wouldn’t be needing clothes on camera anyway. So, it was just beautiful, naked ginger guys everywhere all day. But, even with that happening it wasn’t scandalous. I’m such a ball-buster. In every location, we were constantly photographing and shooting.
Did everyone wear sunblock? Palm Springs sun in summer is literally deadly.
Yes, it was 47, 48 degrees Celsius every day! We have a partnership with Ginger Armour, so we were smothering everyone in that.
How have things changed for redheads since you’ve been doing this project?
There’s this weird anomaly of still being this acceptable form of discrimination. When most people think of all the other forms of discrimination, whether it be sexism, gender, racism or ableism, they immediately know they’re wrong but for some reason ginger discrimination is still seen as acceptable.
In the gay world, for example, ginger guys have been fetishised and there’s a stereotype that they have big dicks which, you know, I can neither confirm nor deny, but mainstream culture has always emasculated and desexualised redheaded men in popular culture.
Right, it was perfect timing. All of a sudden there were ginger-haired leading men.
Yes, there was Prince Harry getting naked in a Las Vegas hotel room – he was the sexy ginger prince. Then there was Damian Lewis in Homeland. Since then, ginger guys are everywhere. So, things have changed, but I still think you’ll find that if you took a broad cross-section of the population and they could choose their colouring, they wouldn’t choose to be a redhead because it’s still not seen as universally attractive.
What was your experience growing up ginger?
I made Red Hot because I wanted ginger guys to be on a level playing field with other guys. When I was younger, I hated being ginger so much that I dyed my hair as soon as I could… I love being ginger.
I did the same thing.
Then I was on holiday with my best mate and he had a pair of clippers because he had a shaved head. It was 10 years in, dyeing my hair all the time, I was so over it, and my friend said, “Should we shave it?”
Growing up, I’d never had compliments for being ginger. I made Red Hot because I hoped that any kid who’s struggling with being ginger won’t take 10 years to discover all the joys of embracing who they truly are.
What’s at the core of this widespread objectification of redheaded people?
Honestly, I think there’s a fascination with red pubes. Just before I launched the first Red Hot exhibition at the end of 2013, which had 50 pictures, a very good friend of mine came to preview the exhibition. He looked around at the pictures being put up and said, “Yeah, they’re hot, but they’ve all got ginger pubes.”
Right, because MC1R is a gene that shows up all over the world. It’s not just a northern European thing. You’ve increasingly featured ginger guys from all over the world.
Yes, we have. You can trace it back to somewhere in the Middle East 60,000 years ago. It’s been prevalent for that long, but it’s expressed itself more and more as a way to access more vitamin D, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere and in Europe. So that’s where the largest pockets of redheads have ended up.
I guess it’s no shock that people get freaked out when someone doesn’t look like them.
Ginger pubes are so rare, too. They’re different. People can go through their whole life and never see them. That question, “does the carpet match the drapes?” comes from that because, of course, the carpets match the drapes.
How can we get Red Hot X?
You can order it from anywhere online at redhot100.com
To see some of the full-frontal nudity of Red Hot X, log into the DNA Sub Zone.
