A lot of things wait and ripen for years in my studio before I have the courage to use them in a setting for a photo shoot. Some objects are difficult. They look, at first glance, obvious. Too obvious. Like a Coca-Cola can, a doll, or a bullet.
They are just that, and the label given to them is thick and difficult to penetrate. It’s challenging to extract the poetry from a Coca-Cola can. It is what it is. Nevertheless, if you are able to delve deeply into the image, you can find something valuable that can convey a story.
So it is with the bullets. I find them everywhere I go. Although hunting near our house has decreased over the years, every winter, in the early morning, shots can still be heard.
The hunters don’t care much about the environment. The many plastic bags, aluminum foil, and empty sardine tins are countless. And so are the many rifle bullets. The hunters don’t clean up the mess they make.
And so I’ve started to collect the colorful cartridges. Yellow, blue, red, green, white, and black ones. I’m not a hunter, so I don’t know the difference between each color. I’m a gatherer. I collect.
For a couple of years, I had a plastic bag with bullet cartridges in my studio without knowing exactly what to do with it. Until I stumbled upon a photo from Irving Penn. A photo depicting cigarette butts. Just as banal as the bullet cartridges. Used-up objects referring to death and addiction. But strangely beautiful.
