[Leica] guns, photography, and the american psychosis

[richard-lists at imagecraft.com (Richard)]

Jayanand, I grew up in HK and moved to the States in 75 when I was 13. I 
can turn you that from my experience, this series probably bothers me as 
much as it does to you! To think that this is a predominant thing sends 
chills up my spine.

At 07:22 PM 10/19/2006, Jayanand Govindaraj wrote:

>Kyle,
>I think its a brilliant series, and truly frightening for those not used 
>to guns (like me!), that this a predominant culture.   However much you 
>humanize them, it still comes across as chilling, at least to me. But 
>again, the photographs are compelling. My interactions with the USA and 
>its culture has been largely on the coasts, and large urban centres, and 
>my reactions probably show this.
>Cheers
>Jayanand
>
>Kyle Cassidy wrote:
>
>>Steve brings up some very real and interesting points, all of which I've
>>been thinking about a great deal over the last year. Certianly my
>>photographic moods have taken various twists and turns since I joined
>>this group in 1998. I've photographed goth models, people who cut
>>themselves, people with tattoos, and various other little things along
>>the way, and I did each as long as it was alive in my mind and when it
>>started to get old, I moved on. And it happens that during this
>>particular project, with the invaluable help of some people on this
>>list, I should mention, I convinced a publisher that they should pay me
>>to keep doing this. The opportunity and financial ability to keep doing
>>it has served to keep it interesting longer -- it gave me the ability to
>>work not in my immediate area, but to drive across the country and meet
>>people -- which is really very exciting to me. Had a publisher gotten
>>behind me to keep photographing cutters, or got me back to romania to
>>photograph the kids in the sewers, I would have been just as happy. I
>>took pictures before they paid me, and I'll take pictures when they
>>stop. I suspect that Steve's not a doctor for the money, rather that
>>healing is part of his nature, but that occasionally the money suggests
>>a direction -- where to live, what to practice -- and so move we all.
>>The money doesn't give you the drive, just the ability to keep at it and
>>keep yourself in film.
>>
>>As for the tiny slice of psychopathology -- it's not that tiny, it's
>>nearly half of every single house in this country and, as Jim pointed
>>out, why does nobody talk about it? If one want to talk about tiny
>>slices of psychopathology, we could talk about leica camera ownership.
>>One of the things that did fascinate me about it from the beginning is
>>that nobody talks about it, or at least nobody that I know. Subcultures
>>I find fascinating. Had I driven across the country photographing the
>>main stream ("100 portraits of people who live in houses!") it probably
>>wouldn't have interested me as much, though, in some parts of this
>>country (Lousiana and Wisconsin for example) Gun Culture is not a
>>subculture, it is indeed the Predominant Culture -- you can just to door
>>to door, introduce yourself, and start photographing.
>>
>>As to whether or not this is doccumentary photography, I'll leave for
>>art critics to say. I was very motivated by Mary Ellen Mark's
>>photographs of the Aryan Nation in Idaho. Looking at her photos years
>>ago I found myself thinking "holy smokes, this woman looks like she
>>works in a Dairy Queen"
>>(http://sapere.alice.it/gallery/Mary_Ellen_Mark/zoom1.html) I was very
>>impressed that Mary Ellen wasn't influenced by the costumery, or the
>>rhetoric, she took a portrait like she'd take any other. That made me
>>realize that these women might, in fact, work at the Dairy Queen after
>>all, and that they have kids, and go to the park, and live in a house,
>>and whatever else. Seeing the face behind the mask made me very curious
>>about all the other faces and all the other masks -- business executives
>>who dress in leather and ride harley's on the weekends, Mild Mannered
>>men who pay women to beat them up, Star Trek fans, groupies -- Secret
>>Identities.
>>
>>Going into this I had two main criteria:
>>1) I'd photograph anybody who was willing to be photographed whom I
>>could physically get to. Nobody got preference, nobody got cut, to get
>>in, all you had to do was have a gun, let me come over, and sign a model
>>release. I've had waaaay more opportunity, (volunteers) than I've had
>>the ability to get to and limits on paper and book prices have limited
>>this to 100 portraits, which I think is a pretty decent size -- most
>>photo books seem to hover between 50 and 75.
>>
>>2) I was going to treat every portrait as if there were no guns in it.
>>I'd treat this as an assignment to photograph people in their new homes.
>>Or, as it turned out to be -- people and their pets. My thought was that
>>by doing this, It would present the gun issue in a larger context. I'm
>>not interested in guns -- I'm interested in people -- what are these
>>people like? What are their lives like? I thought the best way to find
>>out was to look at where they live. Some of them have a big relationship
>>with guns, some have guns they haven't taken out of the closet in
>>fifteen years, some of them don't like guns at all -- but they're all
>>part of those 4 in 10 american households. Some of these people have
>>sinnister portraits because they look stern and live in a foreboding
>>enviornment, some of these people look cute and harmless because they
>>smile a lot and live in cute and harmless looking houses. Some people
>>are messy, some are neat freaks.
>>
>>Certianly this project gets clipping at the top and the bottom end of
>>the spectrum. Many people on the left wings don't want their neighbors
>>to know they have guns. Many people on the right think that I'm working
>>for either Sarah Brady, producing a book that ridicules gun owners, or
>>that I'm working for the ATF compiling a list of people who own guns for
>>the Great Confiscation. In fact, so vociferous has been the noise from
>>the very hardest core of the gun culture threatening to kick my ass for
>>producing anti-gun propaganda that my publisher freaked out and made
>>sure that I got an unlisted phone number.
>>
>>I suspect that everyone gets out of this something flavored by what they
>>came in with, and that's what I'm interested in hearing about, other
>>people's reaction. So far, it's kept people talking and I think that, in
>>my mind at least, makes it successful.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please 
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