After my father passed away in 2007, I came across three vintage handguns I never knew he owned. Torn between the fact they belonged to my father and my own feelings regarding U.S. policy on gun control, I decided to store them in a lock box and revisit the guns at another time. In late 2012, the horrifying murders in Sandy Hook happened. It occurred to me then that I had never dealt with the guns and was ready to get rid of them. A friend suggested that I first photograph them.
In 2013, I laid the guns out on my studio worktable – and circled and stared at them for days, but I felt no emotional connection. After experimenting with strobes and different approaches in black and white, a square piece of rusty, painted metal with a round yellow flaking shape in the middle caught my eye. I placed a gun on top and took a test shot in color. It was then that something snapped, a sense of moving in the right creative direction. Hours were spent wandering antique stores and junkyards looking for props to build the mini sets for Guns in America. The lighting was a paramount component of the images: harsh illumination with loud, tweaked and saturated colors.
While the stark colors of the photographs undergird my conviction about the absence of sane gun policy in the United States, the photos speak a truth shared by many. The images are not subtle. Nor is the subject matter and the violence inflicted by guns every single day. My intention in creating these images is not to dissuade anyone about the validity of the Second Amendment or gun ownership. A few people have commented to me that these photographs are a ‘problem,’ that I’m pitching for the government to ‘take our guns away.’ What I am trying to do is bring an awareness to the need to save lives that are being taken in this country based on guidance that was provided in 1791. Things have changed.
The images are available as 30″x40” prints on Hahnemühle Museum Etching paper in an edition of 25.
The full set of 18 images can be viewed at https://www.jeffcorwinfineart.com/gunsinamerica
- Guns In America - December 11, 2024