"8 Years of Popping Off in Texas" - Where Good Times Go to Die...

At a time when the world is questioning what we are doing to our environment and what we have been
consuming and how we live, I shot this photograph at a shooting range in Texas. It shows a small part of a large shell dump made up of brightly colored spent shotgun shells that have been accumulating for about the last eight years. During this time in Texas we have lived life large, we have consumed large,our conservative political culture has played out large on the world stage and we have accumulated and lost wealth on a scale unimagined by the founders of what was once an infant Republic. Captured in a photo, the shotgun shell becomes a totem to our spent culture. Thankfully, what is quietly taking place now is a process of self reflection which has creeped into what was once unbridled
bravado as we undergo a painful process of economic restructuring. Our challenge is to preserve what makes us uniquely Texans while minimizing the effect this way of life has on the planet.