Dirty Deeds

Unless you're in the business of manufacturing clothes, you might not know much about Teflon fabric protector. But you can learn all you need to know from the company's latest global ad campaign showing people in messy jobs wearing work uniforms protected by Teflon material. Photographer Jeffrey Lamont Brown has done work for Teflon before, and he shot the current campaign (with London ad agency Doner Cardwell Hawkins) over four days recently in San Diego. Brown's cast and crew worked in messy locations like a muddy construction site and a greasy transmission shop. They also did a shoot involving three Irish setters, and another involving someone with a cup of coffee in a crowded elevator. Lighting the transmission shop was tricky, Brown says, since the subject was wearing a light uniform in a dark garage. Actual mechanics worked in the background as extras for some of the auto shop pictures (though not the one used in the final ad). Many of the images chosen for the final ads were actually Lamont's alternate shots, done in the extra time on location. "We were free to push it a little and execute ideas that were part of the process of being there," he says. As advertising, it works. It only takes a quick glance to get the story and know what the product does.



Client: DuPont/Teflon

Agency: Doner Cardwell Hawkins, London

Art director: Ivan Davies

Copywriter: Chris Kirk

Photographer: Jeffrey Lamont Brown