String together three words — chicks with guns — and men will take notice.
So will women.
That’s what photographer Lindsay McCrum has learned since her book “Chicks with Guns,” launched in September.
It’s a portrait collection of 81 women, including 15 Texans, spanning ethnicities, age groups and income levels.
The common thread is that each is photographed with her gun of choice.
McCrum, who will be at book signings next month in San Antonio, said the project has been praised by both men and women.
Reviewers have called it “beautiful, unsettling, compelling, haunting and mesmerizing,” she said.
“And,” she added, “thanks to you Texans, the book launched in Houston on Sept. 20 and quickly sold out on Amazon. We’re already talking about a third printing, so that’s a good sign.”
She said some comments have been funny, like the guy who declared online that chicks and guns were his two favorite things — just add a cheeseburger and he’d die and go to heaven.
“Others have been very moving,” McCrum said. “One gentleman commented that he was in the service, deployed in Afghanistan. He said, ‘My grandmother was always the best shot in our family, and I married a woman who is like the women in your book. Thank you for the morale booster.’”
McCrum splits her time between New York and California. She said she grew up on the East Coast, ambivalent toward guns.
But in 2006, she read an article in The Economist that reported how firearms and hunting are enormous industries in the U.S.
Then she learned that there were an estimated 15 to 20 million female gun owners in the nation. She set out to learn more about them through photography.
“Actually, many of my friends thought this was a misguided focus on my part,” McCrum said. “But I’m a portrait photographer, not a photojournalist. I didn’t have an editorial stance.
“I just wanted to let the women and their pictures tell their stories.”
The project took more than three years to photograph and edit.
McCrum had been to Texas, so she knew its women would make good subjects for the project, and she was pleased when they introduced her to friends to photograph.
These women were mostly from the Houston and San Antonio areas.
“I was hoping to get to Dallas and Austin, but by then, I already had so many strong photos,” McCrum said. “It would have been easy to do a whole book just on Texas.”
Jenevieve Zoch was photographed in her parents’ San Antonio home holding an antique dueling pistol — a family heirloom. She posed in her wedding dress.
Zoch, who hunts extensively with her family, told McCrum how the first date with her husband was at a skeet shooting competition.
“She asked if I still had my wedding dress and that’s how that came about,” Zoch said. “But I thought people might think I looked scary on my wedding day.
“I guess I look like I’m out for blood, holding that dueling pistol.”
But Zoch added that she loved her wedding dress and she loves the her picture. She also praised other photos in the book.
“It’s a cool concept,” she said. “It shows a wide range of women from all different backgrounds: some women hunting; some have guns for self protection; some use guns in their jobs.
“I’m more of a girly girl, but I also like to hunt. I would think Texas girls are a little bit of both, and that’s what I think makes the book so interesting.”
Meet the photographer: Lindsay McCrum will sign copies of her book, “Chicks with Guns” next month at two San Antonio locations. The first is 6-8 p.m. Dec. 15 at Sloan Hall, 5922 Broadway St. She also appears 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Dec. 17 at The Twig Book Shop, 200 E. Grayson St.
