LOCKEDNLOADED.USA

The issue of guns, gun ownership and in particular, gun violence, has increasingly become a mainstay of our country’s weekly news cycle. Over time and by means of extended exposure, I found myself becoming progressively curious about the topic at large, the motivations behind gun ownership and the intense feelings and diametrical opinions that accompany firearms. Ultimately, this struggle became my own as I personally grappled with this fiercely debated subject and its polarity and discovered to my surprise, that the resolution to my quandary lay in lifting my lens in its direction so that I might discover what it wouldreveal.

While at this juncture I cannot return to many of the communities that I photo documented due to the expansive geographic distance that I covered, not to mention the economic outlay that it would entail, I would nonetheless attempt to exhibit my work in disparate communities that overall might reflect one side more strongly of the divide than the other in order that each might see this issue

anew. In addition, I would augment these viewings with personal recollections of the communities in which these photos were taken as well as many of the stories conveyed to me from those individuals photo documented.

No court of exhibition can genuinely further any cause without fully surveying both sides of a topic or in this instance, potentially altering the perspective of a viewer without fully engaging them in the subject matter at hand. I hope that any future engagements I’m able to convene would sincerely attempt in so doing.