Kendrick Brinson took her first photo in Sun City, Arizona, an age-restricted 55+ community of almost 40,000 retirees in December of 2010. Since then she has been returning with her camera to document the lives of retirees there. Sun City was the first place of its kind and it is still the largest. The city is 14 square miles of a retirement paradise of palm tree lined streets, each with a golf cart lane. Sun City provides seniors with a life after work and a life after raising children. Sun City is a life of enjoying friends and being active, in spite of age.
There are more than 100 active clubs in Sun City and the days are filled with lawn bowling and group swim classes and the nights are filled with dancing. All this living comes with loss, however. Friends and spouses die, and the singles dance night is just as full as the couples dance night for obvious reasons. Yet, there’s optimism everywhere.
“Enjoy your youth, I’ll tell ya, you never know how much you have left,” resident Tom Woods said.
Bio:
Kendrick Brinson’s portraiture and documentary work explores the fabric of community through the connections, landscape and personality that makes these places unique. She has covered diverse subjects, including up-and-coming rappers in Atlanta, retirees in an age-restricted community in Arizona,
and the residents of her father’s rural hometown. Her various clients include the New York Times, National Geographic, and Apple.
Brinson grew up in Columbia, South Carolina and graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in newspaper writing, but shifted to photography when she used a camera during her first photojournalism course and immediately witnessed her world expand through the lens. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, photographer David Walter Banks.
Contact info:
803-479-1472
