GABRIELE GALIMBERTI
(ITALY)
PHOTOGRAPHY
 
DETAILS
Print 3 out of 10 on canvas (aluminum framed and non-reflective glass)
H 60 cm x W80 cm (H23.62 x W31.49 inches) 
2019
 
DESCRIPTION
Latoya Piper 32 Huntsville Alabama Latoya Piper (82) - Huntsville, Alabama Not many people can say they stopped a mass shooting, but Latoya Piper is one of them. It was the night of December 81, 2018, and she was working as a security guard at the entrance to a club.
 
Two men began to argue, then one of them went back to his car, took out an AK-47 and tried to go into the club, shooting. Latoya responded swiftly. She fired once and he shot back. Then she fired again and was able to stop him. The man did not die.
 
It was Latoya herself who called the first responders who took him to the hospital. That episode only strengthened her convictions about the importance of carrying a gun. "I encourage victims of violent crimes to learn to use guns, to buy them and practice with them. It only takes one bullet to stop a mass shooting," she says with confidence. Latoya's familiarity with firearms runs deep.
 
She practically grew up in the sheriff's office where her father worked. She was 11 when he taught her how to shoot. At just over 20, she was in Iraq, serving In the military.
 
Today, as a veteran, she believes there should be no distinction between ordinary citizens and members of the armed forces. "There's no sort of firearm that people should be banned from buying.
 
Anything the military has, individuals should be able to have, too." I like military-style weapons because they are more powerful. You're the one who controls the explosion In your hands, the one who directs it. It's the ability to control something that powerful with my ownhands. If, tomorrow, the government decided that some of my guns were illegal, I don't think I'd turn them in. I think I'd ask them to come and get them, and I doubt that they would. If I don't have a gun with me, I feel naked.
 
For Gabriele "Half of all the firearms in the world that are owned by private citizens for non-military purposes are in the United States of America. The overall number, indeed, exceeds the Country’s population: 400 million weapons for 328 million people. This is not a coincidence, nor is it a market-related issue: it is rather a matter of “tradition” and constitutional guarantee established with the Second Amendment, ratified in 1791. This law reassures the inhabitants of the newly independent territories that their Federal Government would not be able, one day, to abuse its authority over them, and they are guaranteed the right to bear arms.
Two hundred and fifty years later, the Second Amendment is still ingrained in all aspects of American life.
Gabriele Galimberti has travelled to every corner of the United States – from New York City to Honolulu – to meet proud gun owners and photograph them and their weapons.
He has photographed people and guns in their homes and neighbourhoods, even in places where no one would expect to find such arsenals.
 
These often disturbing portraits, together with the accompanying stories based on interviews, provide an unexpected and uncommon view of what the institution of the Second Amendment really represents today."
 
Gabriele Galimberti statement
 
BIOGRAPHY
Gabriele Galimberti, born in 1977, is an Italian photographer who lives in Milano and Val di Chiana (Tuscany), where he was born and raised. He has spent the last few years working on long-term documentary photography projects around the world, some of which have become books, such as Toy Stories, In Her Kitchen, My Couch Is Your Couch, The Heavens and The Ameriguns.
 
Gabriele’s job consists mainly of telling the stories, through portraits and short stories, of people around the world, recounting their peculiarities and differences, the things they are proud of and the belongings with which they surround themselves; social media, in all its forms, is a fundamental part of the research needed to get in touch, discover and produce those stories.
 
Gabriele committed to documentary photography after starting out as a commercial photographer and after joining the artistic collective Riverboom. Gabriele still works with commercial photography and he’s also currently working on personal projects, as well as on assignments for international magazines and newspapers such as National Geographic, Stern, Geo, Le Monde, Corriere, La Repubblica, Internazionale and Marie Claire.
His pictures have been exhibited in shows worldwide, such as the well known Le Rencontres de la Photographie (Arles), Festival Images in Vevey, Switzerland, and the renowned V&A museum in London; they have won the several prizes including the Premio GRIN 2020, the APP Prize 2020 and the Best In Show prize at the New York Photography Festival. Gabriele won the WORLD PRESS PHOTO 2021 (portrait category) with his project THE AMERIGUNS. Gabriele became a National Geographic photographer in 2016 and he regularly works for the magazine.
 
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