[Leica] guns, photography, and the american psychosis

[walt at waltjohnson.com (Walt Johnson)]

Carrying that philosophy to it's logical conclusion is frightening. If 
no one is in the forest then does the forest really exist: Is it all in 
our Cartesian heads?  It would seem you are  misusing statistics on gun 
ownership as well. Less firearms today than 20 years ago? Does that mean 
fewer weapons or fewer weapons owners? I still have the .22 rifle 
received on my 12th birthday, 52 years back.  Since then I've owned just 
about everything in the way of handguns and quite a few rifles.

Perhaps it's just a personal thing but guns became very boring. You 
can't walk around outside playing with them as we do with our Leicas. 
The craft which once was as much a part of gun building  as it was with 
an M3 has long-since gone. Who the hell wants a plastic gun? 9mms are 
fun (and cheap) to shoot but if used for self defense you'd better shoot 
your assailant more than once or twice. Hunting is fine for those who 
have the urge. Hunting weapons are fine as well but let's get serious 
for a minute. Forty years ago many Americans had guns. Not many had 
semi-automatic and high capacity military weapons.

You keep coming back to the /knowledge/ of gun ownership or lack thereof 
as if it is meaningful.. Do you suppose there are people in this country 
who choose not to own guns? It takes absolutely no sense at all to pull 
out a weapon and use it. Give me a week or two and I could teach a 
monkey to hit a man-sized target at 7 yards. The idea there is something 
un-American or otherwise wrong with gunless folks seems prevalent but 
false. I am not against shooting people but strongly oppose shooting 
unarmed and reasonably innocent humans. Honestly, it might be 
entertaining to have the "World Series of Bang Bang" Dueling, I think, 
was an honorable way to settle disagreements if it were structured. 
Florida, as I'm sure you and Kyle observed, is crowded as hell. I'm not 
against one of those brides with a garter belt pulling out her derringer 
and wasting the bridesmaid but keep it a family thing. It could be 
useful to let gun nuts fight it out north of Jacksonville to see who 
gets to visit. Other than that though, those of us with a live and let 
live attitude deserve our share of the universe.

The other day Peter sent out Cassini images for Saturn. Pull it up on 
your screen and look at it for a few minutes. After that a discussion on 
gun ownership might seem irrelevant as hell..

Walt

Philip Forrest wrote:

>"If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a
>sound?"
>As far as acoustics are concerned, no.  Sound needs a transmitter, medium
>and receiver.  If one of them is gone, then the sound never existed.
>So what's chilling about this many firearms owners in the USA?  There are
>LESS today than 20 years ago, less then than 20 years before.  Perhaps it's
>the fact that people never knew about all these responsible citizens and the
>realization that they own firearms is shocking to them.  They've always been
>here, many just didn't know about them.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lug-bounces+photo.forrest=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
>[mailto:lug-bounces+photo.forrest=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf
>Of Richard
>Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:29 PM
>To: Leica Users Group; Leica Users Group
>Subject: Re: [Leica] guns, photography, and the american psychosis
>
>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.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Leica Users Group.
>>>See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Leica Users Group.
>>See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>
>>    
>>
>
>// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please 
>use richard at imagecraft.com) 
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Leica Users Group.
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>
>  
>