This work is the result of an exploration into the area of masculinity and social stereotypes. As a documentary photographic essay the work opens the doors to a lesser-seen area of society in an attempt to challenge pre-existing British stereotypes surrounding male identity and firearms.

Our aim is to aim is to survive focuses on Blackpool Pistol and Rifle Club: it’s physicality as a space, the people who use it and the inter-relationship between the two. These images are bound together through their formal presentation yet each image contains a strong individual presence in many cases confirming expectations but in others, interestingly confounding and challenging both the preconceived ideas attached to firearms and Shooting Clubs.

The Blackpool Pistol and Rifle club as been running since 1948 and is a typical example of what you would find in many shooting clubs throughout the United Kingdom. After a 1997 firearms amendment outlawed all but muzzle loading and single shot pistols, the membership to these clubs dwindled. As with many things within contemporary society the unfashionable quickly becomes lost and the
traditions of old soon turn to nostalgia. The walls of this club speak of a time gone; the faux wooden panels and the photographs proudly displayed offer an insight into “the good old days”. However they spoke as much about an acceptance of their fate as it offered a reminder into the past. The unfashionable has already become nostalgic whilst still in existence. To emphasize the idea of ever shifting social opinions I have offered a critique on the normative opinions associated masculinity and firearms by mixing the past and present contained within each frame.

Throughout the work the viewer is encouraged to draw off there own pre-existing opinions before eventually having these opinions subverted. By using masculinity as a focal point, symbolic links are drawn between the continually changing view of masculinity and the decline in popularity of those things that
do not fit within today’s society.”

““an acceptance that photography at the least can capture the present and the visible, he (Coekin) adds an understanding that what we know of the present what we know, and don’t know, of the past and the future”
David Campany on Chris Coekin’s piece Knock Three Times.

Words from Brian J Morrison

See more on Brian J Morrison website