[Leica] guns, photography, and the american psychosis

[kididdoc at cox.net (Steve Barbour)]

On Oct 19, 2006, at 12:33 PM, 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.


that Kyle,  is a wonderful response... cogent, compelling, and  
controlled...as well as being... I believe, truly honest.

I respect you for this...as well as for keeping on with your project,  
even though I have strong reservations about its meaning,  
significance, and the motives of the people (especially those of the  
subjects) involved...

I ask only for a free and autographed copy of the book... to thank me  
for my help in promoting and selling it....

Steve


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