TexasCHLforum.com

threoh8 wrote:The photographer's attitude is telling:

“Posing a woman with a gun is not natural, to convey the feeling of them being comfortable with it was a challenge. Also, I didn’t want the cliché photograph of a sexy woman holding something,” she said.

Growing up in Houston was synonymous with an induction into Texas gun culture. My father kept a pistol in his nightstand for protection. He owned shotguns for hunting wild game and he taught my two sisters and me to shoot at an early age. I remember going out to the country to shoot tin can targets. This was a part of growing up in my household, it's something that I have in common with many of the women that I photographed for Concealed.

As a grown woman, guns have played a minimal role in my life. However, I have found myself drawn to them in my earlier projects—for my book Hard Knocks (Tex Offender's Pistols), and again in Nécessaire (Colt 44)—perhaps making Concealed a logical next project. I was immersed in gun culture, but hadn’t previously reflected on the significance of guns in the everyday lives of Texas women. As I began to photograph these women, I sought to more deeply understand their collective experiences as concealed carriers. So like the women in these portraits, I too was trained, tested, and fingerprinted, eventually becoming a licensed gun carrier.

Concealed depicts the private and previously unseen lives of women who arm themselves. They come from diverse backgrounds, each with their own individual story and personal motivations. Many purchase handguns for protection, others collect them like they might Wedgwood china or high-heeled shoes. Often these women are unassuming and unexpected, a young mother with her baby at the grocery store checkout counter, a grandmother walking her dog, or perhaps a woman in the parking space next to you at the shopping mall. My photographs showcase the diversity of this population. However, I found a commonality in their response to the question “are you prepared to pull the trigger to protect yourself or your loved ones?” The answer from the women in this collection of portraits is a resounding "yes.

uthornsfan wrote:This was linked in the article about the 9 reasons why Texas is the worst state.

http://www.pixable.com/article/conceale ... lton-84960" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All the fingers on triggers makes me cringe!!!!!!!!