Overview
This hard-hitting visual essay, shot throughout the United States over a three-year period, shows how deeply guns are ingrained in the American way of life. Haunting photographs of ordinary people living ordinary lives reveal a world where firearms have become as American as apple pie, where Magnums and Uzis replace pitchforks and bibles as national symbols of freedom; here large sectors of society are as naked without their weapons as they'd be without their cars. With crazed day traders and resentful adolescents mowing down large numbers of their fellow citizens every few weeks, and a death toll of over 30,000 US citizens killed by gunfire every year, these images provide a disturbing insight into a culture saturated with weaponry, and raise serious questions about every American's cherished 'right to bear arms'.Nelson's images reflect the dangerous conditions he has encountered in his twelve-year career in photojournalism — in the Foreign Legion, the Ku Klux Klan, the famine in Somalia and the war in Afghanistan. Portraits include Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher and Mick Jagger. His work appears regularly in the "Sunday Times, Time, Stern, Esquire" and "GQ magazine," and his images have been exhibited in London at the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A and the Royal Festival Hall. "Gun Nation" was exhibited as a major one-man show at the Newseum Gallery, New York (1999). Nelson has appeared on Good Morning America and the Charlie Rose Show (USA) and Channel 4 News and Sky News (UK). Zed Nelson lives in London, and is currently on a tour of US universities lecturing on photography and American gun culture.
Zed Nelson worked as a photojournalist with the BBC's News &Current Affairs team and now works freelance via the London-based agency IPG. Gun Nation is his most important work to date. Images from the book won the 1998 World Press Photo competition, the Visa d'Or for 'Best Magazine Feature', and the prestigious 1999 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award.