I am not afraid.
I do not need a gun.
I do not want a gun.
I hope there are more and more people like me.
I can suggest an alternative to that gun…
I have been putting off this post for close to a decade. Largely because I occasionally think about making it, and then I think, “why bother?” But, then there is another shooting and people die. I don’t care to come across as one exploiting other people’s suffering for my own agenda— if this is even an agenda, it is just me.
Now with 2 weeks gone by and the news cycle churning down, as it always does, on the most recent massacre with a gun…
Why “benshotme”?
There are many reasons, there are multiple fun plays on words and indirect and direct meanings that we can discuss at other times. However, there is also what follows. While it is not the primary reason for the name of my work it is a little food for thought. If the first thing you think when you hear or read “ben shot me” is an image of bloody violence at the barrel of gun, then you are a product of a sick society.
The only things we should be shooting are photographs, or children with antibiotics, or pucks, or for the stars. When the word shoot conjures up locations like Columbine or graphic gun battles, we as a people are broken and we will be until it doesn’t.
I can see this sickness in the sheepish acknowledgement I sometimes get from people. I can be standing right in front of another human being with a CAMERA having just taken their photograph and they will stare blankly and with concern trying to compute “benshotme.com”.
I want to shoot everything and everyone, everyday… with my arsenal of cameras. I want this to not make me or other people even cringe a little bit. I want to live in a world where a great shot is taken by a hockey stick. Or by (even) Lebron James. Lay down your guns… and pick up a camera or a ball or shoot to make someone else’s life better…
Stop being so afraid and small. Be the big shot.
