9 Out of 10 Kids Prefer Cameras to Guns

Havana, Cuba

In high school, I was very proud of my Pearl Jam T-shirt that read "9 out of 10 Kids Prefer Crayons to Guns".  That shirt not only suggested I was at the Pearl Jam Concert, but also that I had distinctive and controversial political views, which would make me appear complex and mysterious.  None of which was actually true.  (I bought the shirt at musicland in the irving mall)

Anyway, I was thinking of that shirt when I was preparing to take this photo. Like the shirt, this photo would be drenched in the kind of political overtones that would have made the activist collegiate me wet my panties.  But I was also thinking about a photo in the Times a few months ago of a young Iraqi boy playing with a toy machine gun, pointing it at the camera.  It was very menacing, and, I suppose, meant to make us all feel weary about the future and the violence being bred into the younger generation.  When I saw that photo, I thought, "Wow, that photographer was probably so thrilled to find that kid"   Then I wondered if he set it up - you know, to get the lighting just right.  Or pose the boy in a way that would have the greatest impact.

I was thinking all this, since I was considering doing the same thing.  But then Maria, the woman with the video camera in the photo (a Cuban studies Major and documentary filmmaker herself), got in there with her video camera and I soon realized no posing would be necessary.  That little girl, who hadn't given the gun much of a second thought, now realized that it was her key to getting alot of adult attention.  Then everything changed.  It became her prop for the evening. She started putting it in her mouth, dancing around the room and pretending to shoot anyone who would pay attention. So, when I finally picked up my camera and starting shooting Maria shooting the kids pretending to shoot us, the circle was complete and started to feed on itself.  It was a perfect symbiotic relationship.  No coaching was required, though in the end, in truth, it's more of a statement about the power of the camera than a justification for an anti gun rally.